Gaines v. Brockerhoff

Citations

• 136 Pa. 175
• 19 A. 958
• 1890 Pa. LEXIS 1022

Syllabus

<p>1. Where a cause in equity is dependent upon oral testimony, it is the proper practice to refer it to a master for a report upon the facts; but the province of the master is merely ancillary, and his work is simply in aid of the court in the performance of its own functions: Phillips’s App., 68 Pa. 130.</p> <p>2. When, therefore, a master’s report comes before the court upon exceptions thereto, so long after the taking of the testimony that the master could have little assistance from his recollection of the appearance and manner of the witnesses, it is not error for the court to find the facts from the testimony reported and enter a decree thereon: Herdic’s App., 58 Pa. 212.</p> <p>3. An agreement made between a debtor and his creditor that the latter will acquire title to the lands of the debtor by means of a sheriff’s sale, and will hold them with the right in the debtor to redeem, may constitute the transaction a mortgage unaffected by § 4, act of April 22, 1856, P. L. 533: Harrison v. Soles, G Pa. 393; Rhines v. Baird, 41 Pa. 256 ; Saunders v. Gould, 134 Pa. 445.</p> <p>4. Such an agreement, if established by sufficient evidence, carried out according to its terms by advances on the part of the creditor and acts to his injury on the part of the debtor on the faith thereof, is enforceable in equity against the creditor: Sweetzer’s App., 71 Pa. 264, followed; Fox v. Heffner, 1 W. & S. 372 ; Jackman v. Ringland, 4 W. & S. 149, and Kimmel v. Smith, 117 Pa. 183, distinguished.</p> <p>5. Grantees of the purchasing creditor, his widow and children, by a deed with but a nominal consideration, not describing the lands in dispute, and, by the testimony of one of the grantees, not intended to include them, have no better standing to contest the debtor’s claim under the agreement than their grantor to whose rights they succeeded.</p> <p>6. A parol defeasance, sufficiently proven, being the equivalent of a written one,* though a bill filed to enforce the debtor’s rights