Bierman v. Lebanon Valley College

Citations

• 20 Pa. Super. 133
• 1902 Pa. Super. LEXIS 197

Syllabus

<p>Evidence — Reformation of written paper — Mistake—Equity.</p> <p>'• A person who seeks to rectify a deed on the ground of mistake must establish, in the clearest and most satisfactory manner, that the alleged intention to which he desires it to be made conformable continued concurrently in the minds of all parties down to the time of its execution ; and also, must be able to show exactly and precisely the form to which the deed ought to have been brought. To reform a contract, and then enforce it in its new shape, calls for a far greater exercise of the power of a chancellor than simply to set the transaction aside. Reformation is a much more delicate remedy than rescission. Hence, in order to justify a decree for reformation in cases of pure mistake, it is necessary that, the mistake should have been mutual.</p> <p>After a lapse of nine years an attempt to reform a paper so as to make it import an obligation to pay to another person than the person named, for a different purpose, or for a purpose not designated in the paper itself, can only succeed where the evidence of mistake is clear, precise and indubitable.</p> <p>In an action by a former college president against the college which had employed him to recover a balance of salary, admitted to be due, the defendant offered as a set-off an amount alleged to be due on a subscription paper signed by the plaintiff. The subscribers to the paper bound themselves to pay the amounts set opposite to their names to a person individually who was in fact the treasurer of the college. The paper was prepared at a meeting of the board of trustees at which meeting a resolution was passed appointing a committee to take subscriptions for the immediate relief of the college. It did not appear that all of the subscribers were present at this meeting, or that they knew of the resolution. The subscription paper made no reference to the resolution. Declarations of the plaintiff were in effect that the full amount had been subscribe