Integrity Title Insurance, Trust & Safe Deposit Co. v. Rau

Citations

• 153 Pa. 488
• 26 A. 220
• 1893 Pa. LEXIS 1136

Syllabus

<p>Judgment — Warrant of attorney to confess judgment — Entry of judgment as security before debt due.</p> <p>In the absence of a restriction or condition to the contrary, judgment may be entered upon a warrant of attorney accompanying a bond, before the debt becomes due; but execution cannot issue until default in payment.</p> <p>A bond in its first paragraph was absolute for the payment of forty-eight hundred dollars. Then followed the.eondition that whereas certain notes are held by plaintiff, payable as set forth, now the condition is such that if said notes are paid as they become due, then the obligation of the bond is to be void, with a further condition that upon default in the payment of any one of the notes all the others shall become immediately due and payable. Accompanying the bond was a warrant of attorney to confess judgment in any appropriate form of action upon said obligation, “ as of any term or time past, present or any other subsequent term or time.” There was no condition, limitation or restriction of any hind in either the bond or the warrant of attorney as to the time of the judgment to be entered, or its amount, within the penal sum of the bond. Held, that judgment might be entered before any of the notes were due.</p> <p>As security, the creditor has a right to as large collateral, and as many different forms of it, as the parties chose to contract for. That is a matter with which the court cannot interfer’e. But the enforcement of satisfaction, by execution or otherwise, is a matter to be governed by the rights and equities of the parties, and comes within the jurisdiction of the court. In the present case the creditor did nothing more than enter up his judgment on the bond, as part of the security agreed on. In so doing he was within his strict legal rights, and the court had no authority to interfere with his action.</p>