206 Pa. 438 | Pa. | 1903
Opinion by
In this appeal appellee has given us no aid by filing a paper-book and we are left to dispose of the issue by the presentation of appellant’s side of it and on the carefully considered opinion of the learned judge of the court below. The facts are about as follows: On December 7, 1866, the trustees of the Norris estate conveyed to Rev. James Crowe, minister of the Ninth Presbyterian congregation of Philadelphia, a lot of ground on the corner of Hancock street and Susquehanna avenue, reserving thereout a yearly six per cent ground rent of $340. After-wards, in 1893, the Reverend Crowe conveyed the property to his congregation which at that date had become incorporated. By proceedings in partition of the estate of Isaac Norris, Sr., in 1867, this particular ground rent became the property of Dr. Isaac Norris, this appellant. J. Parker Norris, his brother, was in 1891 his attorney in fact, and in that year a committee of the church corporation called upon and notified him, that unless the ground rent was reduced from six to five per cent the congregation would pay it off. Both parties assumed that the ground rent was redeemable and therefore could be paid, off at the option of the lot owner. It was agreed, that the reduction to five per cent should be made, but that the option should not be exercised for five years; thereupon, the following agreement in writing, signed and sealed, was executed:
“ That in consideration of the said Isaac Norris, M. D., not demanding more than five per cent interest on a certain annual ground rent reserved by deed dated December 7,1866, the said, the Norris Square United Presbyterian Church, doth hereby agree that they will not pay off the principal of the said ground*445 rent until the expiration of five (5) years after the first day of July, 1891, and the said Isaac Norris, M. D., doth hereby promise and agree that he will not, at any time, ask, demand, or sue for more than five per cent interest on said ground rent so long as the said church continues to pay the same with reasonable punctuality.”
The case of Palairet v. Snyder, 106 Pa. 227, appeal from common pleas, No. 1, of Philadelphia, had been decided by this court in 1884. The reservation of ground rent in that deed was substantially the same in terms as in the one before us, and we held the ground rent was irredeemable ; although that case had been the law for seven years both parties were ignorant of it. The congregation thereafter continued to pay the ground rent at five per cent as stipulated in the agreement and Norris continued to accept the same without objection until January 28, 1901, when Norris discovered the decision in Palairet v. Snyder and concluded that his ground rent was irredeemable; he at once demanded from the congregation six per cent and on refusal to pay brought assumpsit in common pleas, No. 4, of Philadelphia. To this the congregation filed an affidavit of defense denying liability for more than five per cent and averring, the stipulation in the agreement, as limiting liability to that amount. While the record of the action at law stood in this condition, on January 10, 1902, Norris filed this bill, praying that the agreement be declared void and that it be delivered up for cancelation on the ground that it was entered into under a mistake as to the law by both parties, and further, specially praying that defendant be enjoined from setting it up as a defense in the action of assumpsit. The defendant demurred on the grounds that an action at law involving the same matter was then pending and that on the face of the bill plaintiff had no equity of which a court of equity would take jurisdiction. The court below sustained the demurrer and dismissed the bill, first, because plaintiff had an adequate remedy at law; and second, because the mistake of law was one which under the facts averred in the bill, equity would not relieve against.
We think that plaintiff had an adequate remedy at law. He had brought his action in assumpsit and defendant had filed affidavit disclosing fully its defense, based on the agreement.
But probably, because the same question would have had to be determined in the action at law, that is, the effect of the agreement made under a mutual mistake of law, the court saw fit to go further, and determine whether on the facts the plaintiff should in equity be relieved from the consequence of it. The maxim, “ Ignorantia legis neminem excusat ” undoubtedly applies where the ignorance is of a well known rule of law, or as it is sometimes stated, ignorance of a general rule of law; but where the ignorance is of the law is specially applicable to the determination of a private right and the ignorant party complains because he has been prejudiced by the contract, it does not follow that equity will in all cases afford relief. By simply filing a demurrer, of course, the defendant admits the material averments of the bill and the material averment is, that the agreement was prompted by a mutual ignorance of the law as applicable to reservations of ground rent in the terms incorporated in this deed; both parties acting in the belief that this ground rent was redeemable, whereas in law it was not.
There was no serious hardship in the case; the estate remained in the family of the dead brother; his brothers and sister got a fraction less than the law allowed them; the nephews and nieces a fraction more. It was a case of ignorance of the law alone and this court declined to set aside the release. In the opinion, the court cites a number of authorities from the Supreme Court of the United States, as well as Story’s Equity Jurisprudence in support of the rule, that mere ignorance of the law itself is no ground for relief in equity and concludes thus i
*448 “We grant that, where there is a mistake of a clear, well established and well known principle of law, whether common or statute law (for in this respect we can conceive no difference), equity will lay hold of slight circumstances to raise a presumption that there has been some undue influence, imposition, mental imbecility, surprise or confidence abused, but it is obvious that, in such cases, the mistake itself is not the foundation of relief, but the relief is had on entirely independent grounds, so as not to impinge the general rule. We are therefore of the opinion that in no case is ignorance or mistake of the law, with a full knowledge of the facts, per se, a ground for equitable relief.”
Justice Rogers admits there are rare exceptions to the rule and we concede that the trend of decisions in our state has been to multiply the exceptions as witness: Heacock v. Fly, 14 Pa. 540; Peters v. Florence, 38 Pa. 194; Gross v. Leber, 47 Pa. 520; Whelen’s Appeal, 70 Pa. 410; Goettel v. Sage, 117 Pa. 298; Wilson v. Ott, 173 Pa. 253, and perhaps others; but in each of the cases cited the relief granted was not based solely on the ground of ignorance of the law; but there were in addition circumstances of great hardship resulting from the ignorance, or, in addition to the mistake of law, facts pointing strongly towards fraud or undue influence, yet which would not have been so certainly established as to warrant setting aside the contract.
Notwithstanding the remarks of McCollum, C. J., in Wilson v. Ott, supra, the last case cited, tending to throw doubt on the continued existence of the rule in Good v. Herr, supra, yet it will be noticed he cites Good v. Herr and distinguishes it from the one before him. What he says in disparagement of the rule is based on an essay in the American Jurist, and was not necessary to a decision of the case before him and therefore to some extent is dicta. The case before him was a “ hard ” case in which if the contract had been enforced according to law the defendant would have been compelled to pay $4,000 for a title they did not get, a case of gross hardship clearly constituting it an exception to the rule; therefore no assault on the general rule was necessary. This is the Pennsylvania case on which appellant seems to most confidently rely. But nevertheless, we adhere to that rule as the law of this commonwealth, that
If the evidence shows, that in addition there would be great hardship in enforcing the contract made in ignorance of the law, equity may afford relief. But between the border of great 'hardship and actual fraud there are many contracts made in ignorance of the law; yet which result in no inequitable consequences from the enforement of the general rule. In such cases the rule should be enforced. The principle of the inviolability of contracts made with a full knowledge of the facts, and where there has been no overreaching or serious injury, should not be disturbed for slight reasons. There are very few cases where the title of a grantee of land has failed that the failure is not the result of ignorance of law by the grantee or of his counsel; the ignorance may only be demonstrated in a subsequent judicial trial, yet the legal theory is, that the law as announced at the trial was always the law though its first promulgation may have been only at that particular trial.
But a case directly in point is decided by the Supreme Court of California reported in 20 Cal. 637, and in 81 Amer. Decisions, 137, Kenyon v. Welty. In this case a contract was entered into by both parties under the belief that the law had been established by a decision of the Supreme Court made some time before. Clearly, both parties entered into the contract under the view of the la-w as announced by the Supreme Court. Sometime after, the court overruled its decision in the first case, and an action was brought to set aside the agreement on the ground that it had been made because of a mutual mistake of law. The court refused to disturb the contract saying: “ Indeed the weight of authority in the United States is, that mistakes (of law), unless accompanied with special circumstances, such as misrepresentation, undue influence or misplaced confidence, constitute no ground for relief.”
In the case before us there was no new law announced relating to contracts, in Palairet v. Snyder, supra, of which plaintiff might easily have been ignorant. That case only announces a law old as English law, that is, that where the grantee of land by deed covenants to pay annually forever an
As to the question of want of consideration, the plaintiff suffers no hardship from his contract which will move equity to rescind it; the contract then is in full force; it met the approval of plaintiff when he signed it; he got the consideration he demanded. The seal imports a consideration; on its face the contract expresses one; therefore, as long as equity refuses to abrogate it, it must be taken to be what it purports’ to be, a good contract in law.
The decree of the court below is affirmed and the appeal is dismissed at costs of appellant.