29 Pa. 260 | Pa. | 1857
The opinion of the court was delivered by
It is impossible for one without either title or power to convey a valid title to another. The streanl cannot rise above its source. The case of a bona fide purchaser, without notice, is not an exception to the rule, for it is because the vendor had the perfect legal estate that he could extinguish the equity of another by a sale to a purchaser without notice. It follows that a tenant for life, who has lost his right by an adverse possession of twenty-, one years, can neither recover the land himself, nor, by transfer of his claim, enable any one else to do it before the termination of the life estate. The statute of limitation gives a perfect title: 5 S. & R. 240; 10 Watts 295; 7 Harris 306. It is a mistake to suppose that the person barred by the statute loses nothing but his remedy. The law never deliberately takes away all remedy without an intention to destroy the right. Remedies are frequently changed. One is withdrawn and others remain, or one is substituted for another. But when all remedies are taken away after a specified period of neglect in asserting rights, and when this is done for the purpose of promoting the best interests of society, the right itself is destroyed. In this case, the tenant for life, at the time he released to the plaintiff, could neither make entry nor maintain any real or possessory action. His right was completely vested in the person in possession. He had nothing whatever to convey. His release was
This is the principle recognised in Crow v. Kightlinger, 1 Casey 343. The case of Marple v. Myers, 2 Jones 122, does not stand in opposition to it. It is true there appears to have been a recovery of one-third of the land, in opposition to the principle, but the defendant in possession, whose rights were affected by it, took no writ of error, and no one made objection to that part of the case. The plaintiffs in the case could make no objection to it, because the decision was in their favour. But they took a writ of error because they were not allowed to recover the other two-thirds claimed under a different title, and the only error assigned was to that part of the charge in which the jury were instructed that the plaintiffs were not protected by the proviso in the statute of limitations in favour of persons under the disabilities of infancy,
It is perfectly immaterial whether Yanvoorhis ever paid over to the parties entitled the money received on his sale of the land to Earquhar. The contract with Yanvoorhis, and the deed from him, as the agent of Nancy Moore, were given in evidence merely for the purpose of showing the extent of the defendant’s claim under the statute of limitations. The non-payment of the money by Vanvoorhis to Nancy Moore could not tend in the slightest degree to show that the extent of the possession was not as claimed. The want of authority in Yanvoorhis either^to sell or convey was equally unimportant in its bearing on that part of the issue.
Judgment affirmed.