114 Pa. 486 | Pa. | 1886
delivered the opinion of the court,
In plaintiff in error’s history of the case, as well as in defendant’s counter statement of facts, it is asserted that no testimony was offered in the court below by either party, and hence we are not furnished with any evidence. This is a rather novel method of trying an action of ejectment; and if it were not that the learned counsel agree as to a few controling facts which appear to have been admitted and acted upon by the court below, as evidence, we would feel constrained to remand the case for trial.in a more orderly way.
This action was brought by Peter List, committee of the person and estate of Nicholas Shaffer, a lunatic, against Christina Shaffer wife of the lunatic, to recover possession of a'house and lot of which her husband is seized in fee, and the only property he owns. From 1868 until after he became insane, the lunatic and his wife occupied the house in question as their home, and she and their three minor children have continued to reside therein ever since, and, occasionally the lunatic himself visits them there. The single question is, whether the action of ejectment to dispossess the lunatic’s wife and children can be maintained by his committee. The learned court below, holding that it could, refused defendant’s points and directed a verdict in favor of plaintiff. This action of the court is the subject of complaint in the respective specifications of error.
“ The care of the persons and estates of those who are non compos mentis,” is one of the special subjects in relation to which the several courts of Common Pleas are expressly invested with the jurisdiction and powers of a court of chancery : Purd., 689. After a person has been duly found a lunatic the
Judgment reversed.