5 Pa. 497 | Pa. | 1847
The decree of the court below is affirmed. There can be no doubt or question about the right of a party to a submission to revoke it before it is consummated. It has been assimilated by the courts to the case of any other power which is naked and without consideration; whether upon sufficient grounds of policy or similarity, it is not for me to question. The court take the law as they find it. But in the case at bar, it was not a naked power or submission. It assuméd the form of a contract upon sufficient consideration, and was .therefore beyond the dominion of either party, after its execution. Its rescission required the consent of both; Hunt v. Rousmanier, 8 Wheat. 174; Monongahela Navigation Co. v. Fenlon, 4 Watts & Serg. 205.
In the case in hand, the plaintiff had instituted proceedings in chancery to compel a settlement of partnership accounts which had been for some time procrastinated, but as they approached a close, he agreed to discontinue the proceedings, which of course subjected him to the costs, and with the defendants agreed to enter into an amicable action of account render, and submit the matters in controversy to an umpire named, whose decision was to be final and conclusive without appeal, and judgment to be entered by the prothonotary.
It is quite apparent that the plaintiff was induced to agree to discontinue his proceedings in chancery by the substitution of this amicable action, and that he never would have entered into the agreement if he had not believed the substituted proceedings were to be final and binding mutually. There are other matters in the agreement which give it the indelible marks of a mutual contract on sufficient consideration; such as that the books of the firm should be deposited with Samuel Armstrong, Esq., who was to proceed and collect the claims due the firm, and pay over the money, one-third to each of the parties.
The agreement to discontinue the chancery proceedings, the stipulation in regard to the books, and the payment of the money collected, to each partner his share, were all parts and parcels of the agreement, which contributed to render the whole irrevocable by either party alone. Something was said on the argument about no actual discontinuance of the proceedings in chancery, and an
This determination of the main question disposes of all the others raised by the defendants, which are merely subsidiary.
Judgment affirmed.