7 Watts 382 | Pa. | 1838
The opinion of the Court was delivered by
The English courts give an unlimited effect to possession as an index of title. In Douglass v. Whitney, and Daniel v. Davidson, 16 Ves. 249, where the doctrine attained its maturity, it was settled that the possession of a tenant is notice of his actual interest, whether as a lessee or a purchaser. The principle may seem to have been pushed, in these instances, to the verge of propriety; yet where the occupant has not an opportunity to register his deed, or a deed to register, nothing short of it could protect him. In Pennsylvania every written title may be registered ; and where an occupant announces but one of his titles, he does an act which, for its tendency to mislead, ought to postpone the other. By exhibiting a conveyance to which, by his own showing, his possession may be referred, he does what he can to turn a purchaser from the direct path of inquiry. The party for whose protection registration is intended would be more misled by the use of it than if the occu
On the point of actual notice, however, the direction is unexceptionable. The witness who warned the purchasers had not an interest to entitle his warning to respect. He was the plaintiff’s brother, and his own land was selling on the same execution ; but neither consanguinity nor community of burthen gives a right to interfere. In Ripple v. Ripple, 1 Rawle 391, it was thought that an uncle might give notice as the next friend of an idiot destitute of a committee or guardian; ¿but that was on the score of necessity ; and even he was shown to have had a particular, though remote, interest of his own. In Kerns v. Swope, 2 Watts 75, the English rule that information by a stranger, or even a general claim by a party, may be disregarded, was recognized and asserted : and the law of notice would be brought to a perilous pass if it were relaxed. The purchasers, therefore, had constructive, but not actual notice.
Judgment reversed, and a venire de novo awarded.