Brown v. Bailey

Citations

• 159 Pa. 121
• 28 A. 245
• 1893 Pa. LEXIS 1486

Syllabus

<p>Statute of frauds — Parol exchange of lands — Evidence.</p> <p>A parol agreement for the exchange of lands established by clear, precise and indubitable evidence, and consummated by actual possession, is not within the statute of frauds.</p> <p>If the evidence of an exchange of lands shows a clear, unequivocal and complete taking possession of one of the subjects of an exchange by the party owning the other subject, it strengthens the evidence of a possession taken by the opposite party of the corresponding subject. Evidence of possession that might seem weak and inconclusive in the case of a parol sale, is thus made clear and convincing in the case of an exchange.</p> <p>Exchange of lands — Specific performance — Jurisdiction.</p> <p>Where an exchange of lands was made in the lifetime of plaintiff’s testator, and was fully consummated by an adverse and notorious possession continued by defendants to the time of decedent’s death and afterwards, defendants have the right, in an action of ejectment, to set up the equitable defence that the contract was performed, and plaintiffs cannot deny their right to set up this defence on the ground that it was a ease of specific performance of decedent’s contract of which the orphans’ court has exclusive jurisdiction.</p> <p>Evidence — Trespass—Dispossession—Deed.</p> <p>In the above case it was proper to exclude evidence that defendants deposited cinders upon the lot which they formerly owned and exchanged for the lot of plaintiff’s decedent, as such an act tended to prove a trespass, and not a dispossession.</p> <p>It was also proper to exclude a deed made by defendants four years subsequent to the exchange, granting a right of way to a railroad over the land, the grant being limited to the right “ so far as same may pass over our land.”</p>