Haney v. Moorehead

Citations

• 61 Pa. Super. 187
• 1915 Pa. Super. LEXIS 295

Syllabus

<p>Evidence — Contract—Written contract — Contemporaneous oral agreement — Substitution of one contract for another — Release of mechanics’ liens.</p> <p>Where a subcontractor executes a release of mechanics’ liens on several houses on an oral agreement with the owner that the latter will not use the releases unless all the materialmen sign, and subsequently, before all sign, at the request of the owner, and in substitution of the general release, the subcontractor executes an individual release covering each of the houses, but such individual releases are not obtained from all of the other subcontractors, testimony as to the oral agreement relating to the original release is admissible as to the individual releases, inasmuch as the whole matter is in effect one transaction.</p> <p>If the release given was to be deemed executed only when all the members of the specified class had signed it, and the owner used it in a different way, and without the existence of the specified condition, such use is a fraud because it is in violation of the promise made at the time the paper was executed.</p> <p>Mechanics’ liens — Parties—Intervention—Title company — Act of June I, 1901, Section 28, P. L. 131.</p> <p>Where a title insurance company insures title to a property after the owner has presented to it certain releases of mechanics’ liens, and subsequently, and after liens have been filed notwithstanding the releases, takes title to the property in order to protect its own interest, and it appears that the owner had attempted to make a fraudulent misuse of the releases, the title insurance company has no standing to intervene in a scire facias subsequently issued on the liens, as a party having a lien within the meaning of the Act of June 4, 1901, P. L. 431; nor has it a standing as an owner to offer in defense the releases in question, inasmuch as the filing of the liens after the date of the releases gave it actual or constructive notice that the plaintiffs in the scire faci