Friday v. Liebendorfer

Citations

• 242 Pa. 458
• 89 A. 876
• 1913 Pa. LEXIS 908

Syllabus

<p>Real property — Ejectment—Defenses—Evidence—Deeds.</p> <p>A testatrix, seized of certain land, left surviving her a husband and five children, two of whom died intestate, unmarried and without issue. Upon the death of the husband the two surviving children, together with two children of a deceased daughter, brought ejectment for the land, claiming title under the intestate laws. The defense set up was that the husband who had married again, had with his second wife conveyed it to defendant’s grantor. More than seven months after the ejectment was brought and more than fifty years after the death of the testatrix, a paper purporting to be her will was admitted to probate. In it she directed that her husband should have the use of her real estafe as long as he remained unmarried and that upon his marriage or death the property should be sold by her executors and the proceeds divided among her children. There was no evidence that the husband ever knew of the will or had taken thereunder but the two executors named in the will had put their names beneath the signatures of the grantors in the deed to defendant’s grantor, although there was no recital in the deed of the capacity in which they had signed it, nor was there any evidence that they had ever undertaken in any manner to act as executors of the will during the more than fifty years that intervened between the death of the testatrix and the admission of the will to probate. On the trial the offer in evidence of this deed for the purpose of showing title in defendant’s grantor from the husband and the executors of his wife’s will was excluded and a verdict directed for plaintiff. Meld, no error.</p>