In re Estate of Schiehl

Citations

• 179 Pa. 308
• 36 A. 181
• 1897 Pa. LEXIS 638

Syllabus

<p>Evidence — Mortgage—Parol evidence to vary.</p> <p>Where a mortgage is given for money received, parol evidence is inadmissible to prove that the principal was not to be repaid, and that the interest was payable only during the mortgagee’s life, unless it be accompanied by proof that the stipulation was omitted through mistake, fraud or imposition.</p> <p>Mortgage — Gift—Evidence—Decedents' estates.</p> <p>Among the effects of a decedent was found a mortgage executed by the decedent’s sister, and duly recorded ten years before decedent’s death. The proof was clear that the mortgagor not only paid the interest during most of that time, but also that the mortgagee required her to pay it. When the decedent died the mortgagor became executrix of the decedent’s estate and claimed, as against decedent’s husband, that the mortgage, or the money represented by the mortgage, had been given to her. The pi’oof in support of the gift was founded exclusively upon loose and uncertain testimony of verbal declarations of the mortgagee, many of which were conflicting with each other, in some of which a gift or intended gift of the money, and in others a gift or intended gift of the mortgage, was asserted, and in others that the principal was never to be paid, but the interest, or so much as the mortgagee needed, was to be paid. Held (1) that there was not sufficient evidence to sustain a gift of the mortgage or of the money loaned ; (2) that parol evidence, in the absence of mistake, fraud or imposition, was inadmissible to contradict the express terms of the written instrument.</p>