51 Pa. Super. 320 | Pa. Super. Ct. | 1912
Opinion by
This was an action of ejectment for an undivided one-fourth part of a lot alleged to have been conveyed by the Phila. & Reading Coal & Iron Company to Mary Ellen Nolan. The deed pufports to have been executed in March, 1873, and was recorded in May of the same year. Mary Ellen Nolan died intestate, and the plaintiff, a daughter by her first marriage, claimed as one of her heirs. The defendants James Nolan and Ellen Nolan, children of Mary Ellen Nolan by her second marriage, denied the right of the plaintiff and of their deceased mother in the lot, and claimed title through Thomas Nolan, their deceased
As applied to the question for decision, the controlling words of clause (e), sec. 5, of the Act of May 23, 1887, P. L. 158, are “any matter occurring before the death of said party.” Obviously, to testify as to the date of the death of the party is not to testify to any matter occurring before his death, and, therefore, is not within the letter of the exception to the general rule of competency. The admission of such testimony produces no inequality; and even if it did, that alone would not be ground for excluding it. “Since the passage of the act of 1887 competency is the rule; incompetency the exception. Departures from the common-law rules of evidence are for the legislature, and, when so made, inequalities, real or apparently so, resulting from the legislative removal of the disqualifications of witnesses, cannot be urged as reasons why judges ought not to read the words of legislators as they are written: ” Allen’s Est., 207 Pa. 325; Broadrick v. Broadrick, 25 Pa. Superior Ct. 225. As was held shortly after the passage of the Act of April 15, 1869, P. L. 30, so it may be said, with even greater emphasis since the passage of the act of 1887, “the court, in order to act in good faith toward the legislative branch of the government, must discountenance all objections on the score of interest and policy unless they be made clearly to appear:” McClelland’s Exr. v. West’s Adm., 70 Pa. 183. The same view of the evidence acts was thus expressed in Weaver v. Roth, 105 Pa. 408: “When the words of a statute are plain and direct we have a right to assume that its meaning is expressed in those words; there is in such case no room for construction. The Act of April 9, 1870, P. L. 44, and its amendment of May 11, 1881, P. L. 20, are remedial and enabling statutes, and should be liberally construed. We are not inclined to im
Judgment reversed and venire facias de novo awarded.