Irwin v. Mattox

Citations

• 138 Pa. 466
• 21 A. 209
• 1891 Pa. LEXIS 1125

Syllabus

<p>[To be reported.]</p> <p>1. One who, in consideration of a certain sum of money, has verbally rented a field for tbe raising of two successive crops, is not a cropper, but a tenant.</p> <p>2. Such tenant, when there is no stipulation to the contrary, is entitled to the product of the land by any use he may choose to make of it, consistent with the rules of good husbandry.</p> <p>3. It cannot be held as a matter of law, therefore, that, during the term for which the field was rented, the tenant has no right to pasture his cattle therein on crops belonging to him.</p> <p>4. The act of April 13, 1807, 4 Sm. L. 473, relating to strays, has no application to cattle straying across an unfenced boundary line between their owner’s field and the field of a neighbor.</p> <p>5. In such case, the seizure of the cattle by the neighbor, while in his own field, being a trespass without justification in the act of 1807, the owner may maintain replevin for his cattle so seized.</p> <p>6. Jurisdiction under the act of 1807 is founded on the facts recited in it, and if these are absent, proceedings under the act will neither legalize a seizure nor take away the owner’s common-law remedy.</p>