The auditing judge disallowed a claim for alleged advances to decedent during his lifetime, and exceptions thereto were taken.
He did not believe that part of the testimony of Mrs. Marley, decedent’s widow, where she stated that decedent promised to reimburse claimant for the increased payments. Without this testimony claimant’s case is without any support whatsoever.
We are now called upon to rule upon the exceptions which aver that the auditing judge erred in his findings of fact. A review of the record reveals that these findings of fact were based upon the evidence as well as from inferences and deductions based thereon.
When a hearing judge refuses to believe the testimony of a witness, his conclusion as to credibility will not be disturbed unless his acts are biased, capricious, or unreasonable: Link’s Estate (No. 1), 319 Pa. 513.
It is a well-established principle of law that findings of fact by an auditing judge, like the verdict of a jury, will not be disturbed unless clear error is shown. To justify a reversal there must be manifest error: Schultz’s Estate, 24 D. & C. 546.
Though it is the duty of the court en banc to review carefully such of the findings of fact of a chancellor as
In applying these principles of law to the instant case we advert to the rule that claims of the character here presented must be as definite and precise as is required to recover a debt in an action at common law: Blumberg’s Estate, 115 Pa. Superior Ct. 310, and cases therein cited; and, further, that although claimant was merely a stepdaughter of the decedent she resided in his household, and we therefore must consider this relationship in passing upon the claim: Goodhart’s Estate, 278 Pa. 381; Hirst’s Estate, 274 Pa. 286.
We are impressed with the language in Blumberg’s Estate, supra, where the court quoted from Gilbraith’s Estate, 270 Pa. 288:
“Claims against a dead man’s estate, which might have been made against himself, while living, are always subjects of just suspicion, and our books . . . are full of expressions by this court of the necessity of strict requirement of proof and the firm control of juries in such cases.”
We have carefully examined the record in this estate, and can find no error in it. We see no occasion to differ from the auditing judge in his findings of fact, or in the inferences and deductions which he made from the testimony.
We cannot conclude without stating that even though the auditing judge had credited the part of Mrs. Marley’s testimony wherein she stated that the decedent agreed to reimburse claimant he would still have been faced with
The exceptions are dismissed and the adjudication is confirmed absolutely.
