53 Pa. 161 | Pa. | 1866
The opinion of the court was delivered, by
The legal title to the land in controversy, if in Joseph Webster, Sr., at his death descended to his heirs, and they could unquestionably maintain ejectment upon it, and recover unless prevented by some controlling equity. The defendant set up a contract for the land with the ancestor of the plaintiff; a partial payment of the purchase-money, and long-continued pos
The objection to the defendant’s equity, that it was barred by the Act of 22d April 1856, was not well considered. This is a limitation beyond which an action for specific performance of a contract for the sale of real estate cannot be maintained. But that was not the defendant’s position. He was simply setting up an equity, which he had been asserting by living and improving under it for upwards of twenty years. There is no statute to debar him from that. We have lately held in Clark v. Trindle et al., 2 P. F. Smith 492, that a party in possession is not barred by the act from setting up an equity, as he would be from enforcing it by action.
We see nothing wrong in the action of the court in any particular in the case, and we must affirm it. We are not called on to say anything about who will be entitled to the money, or who is to make title. The court below will no doubt rightly determine that in due season.
Judgment, as well as the subsequent proceedings, affirmed.