Freeman v. Pennsylvania Railroad

Citations

• 173 Pa. 274
• 33 A. 1034
• 1896 Pa. LEXIS 694

Syllabus

<p>Contracts — Actions—Parties—Stranger to contract.</p> <p>Where a contract is for the benefit of the contracting party, no action can be maintained by a third person who is a stranger to the contract and the consideration.</p> <p>Railroads — Lease—Mortgage—Contract—Coupons.</p> <p>Where a railroad company leases the property and franchises of another railroad company, and covenants in the lease to pay operating expenses and to apply the surplus of earnings, if sufficient for that purpose, to the payment of the coupons for interest on the underlying first mortgage bonds of the lessor company previously issued, the holder of such coupons has no right of action against the lessee to recover the amounts of the coupons.</p> <p>Such a ease is not within the rule that a person who is not a party to a contract may sometimes maintain an action upon it in his own name, where he is the only one who is beneficially interested in its performance, and where the party with whom it was actually made has ceased to have any real interest in it.</p>