Light v. Zeller

Citations

• 144 Pa. 582
• 22 A. 1025
• 1891 Pa. LEXIS 643

Syllabus

<p>(а) Several tracts of land, of a decedent leaving seven children to survive him, were partitioned in the Orphans’ Court, when the husband of one of the heirs appeared in right of his wife and elected to take and was awarded one tract, both husband and wife entering into a recognizance, duly approved, conditioned that they should pay out the several shares of the other heirs. o</p> <p>(б) Eighteen months afterward, cross-releases were executed between the husband and wife, and the other heirs to whom other lands were awarded in the same proceeding, when all the wife’s interest in her father’s estate, together with a small amount supplied by the husband from his own funds, was applied to the payment of owelty to the other parties in interest.</p> <p>(c) In ejectment by the wife against a purchaser in possession of the tract allotted, sold at sheriff’s sale as the husband’s property after notice of the wife’s claim of title, there was testimony that the husband and wife, on the eve o'f the allotment, had agreed that the former should take the land for the latter, whose interest in the estate should be applied to the purchase money:</p> <p>1. The jury having found, under sufficient testimony and proper instructiohs, in favor of the wife as to the agreement, the wife, entitled, at all events, to the undivided one seventh of the land as her own share, was entitled, also, under a trust springing from the agreement, and the allotment, recognizance, and payment in pursuance of it, to a part of the remaining six sevenths proportionate to the purchase money she supplied.</p> <p>2. The recognizance entered into operated at the time, proprio vigore, as an appropriation of her interest in the entire valuation money, as far as it went, to the appraised value of the purpart taken by her husband for her benefit; and the fact that the actual calculation and application was not made for several months afterward, did not affect the rights of the parties.</p> <p>3. Acts and declarati