Assigned Estate of Selser

Citations

• 141 Pa. 529
• 21 A. 777
• 1891 Pa. LEXIS 1099

Syllabus

<p>1. Where, prior to an assignment for creditors, accounts were stated yearly by a creditor, with usurious interest charged, and notes given by the debtor for the balance shown on settlement, other creditors, in the absence of fraud, have no standing to except to the allowance of the notes, including such interest, out of the assigned estate.</p> <p>2. It is not now unlawful for a debtor to pay more than six per cent interest; and a creditor has no right to attack such a transaction, unless the agreement to pay a higher rate was part of a scheme to cheat and defraud the other creditors of the debtor: Per Mr. Chief Justice Paxson. [See act of May 28, 1858, P. L. 622.J</p> <p>(a) A debtor, prior to an assignment for creditors, assigned to a creditor, jointly interested with the debtor in a trade in tomatoes, “ all dividends to be paid” thereafter out of another assigned estate, “to be held in lieu of any loss that may be sustained in the said sale of tomatoes bought for the joint-account trade: ”</p> <p>3. The parol testimony, submitted in explanation of the ambiguity in the assignment, was sufficient to authorize the court below to reverse the finding of an auditor that the assignment was made as a discharge of the creditor’s claim, and to award to the balance unpaid thereby a dividend out of the debtor’s estate.</p> <p>4. The rule that parol testimony is inadmissible to contradict or vary the terms of a written instrument, is applied only to suits between the parties to the instrument. It cannot affect third persons, who, otherwise, might be prejudiced by writings from which a part of the truth was omitted: Per Arnold, J.</p>