Knapp v. Griffin

Citations

• 140 Pa. 604
• 21 A. 449
• 1891 Pa. LEXIS 880

Syllabus

<p>(a) The administrator of a decedent, who in his lifetime was secretive in his method of taking care of his estate, but intrusted many or most of his loans and collections to his son-in-law, sought to charge the latter for amounts of money alleged to have been received by him and unaccounted for to the decedent:</p> <p>1. In such ease, general assertions by the defendant, in casual conversa^ tions after the decedent’s death, to the effect that he wished there was some one who knew something about the affairs of the deceased, that he himself knew nothing about them whatever, were irrelevant to the issue and inadmissible.</p> <p>2. Slight inaccuracies in reviewing the facts, in a charge to a jury, with expressions of opinion as to the merits of the case, when accompanied by instructions that the facts are for the jury and they should remember them, and the alleged errors were not called to the attention of the court before the jury retired, are not ground for reversal.</p> <p>3. Where a son-in-law, as the agent of his father-in-law, was in the habit of collecting money for the latter and investing it for him, a state of mutual confidence existing, in the absence oí evidence of non-payment, or ol complaint on the part ol the father-in-law in his lifetime, the money must be presumed to have passed into the possession ol the owner: Eavenson’s App., 84 Pa. 172.</p>