McDowell v. North Side Bridge Co.

Citations

• 251 Pa. 585
• 97 A. 97
• 1916 Pa. LEXIS 509

Syllabus

<p>Evidence — Admissions—Statements in other proceedings — “Admission of governing fact” — Case for jury.</p> <p>1. While an -unqualified admission by a plaintiff of the existence of a governing fact not contradicted or explained after opportunity afforded, may be sufficient to warrant binding instructions, a mere expression of opinion with respect to a question of legal liability without any statement of the facts upon which such conclusion was based cannot be regarded as an unqualified admission of the existence of a governing fact.</p> <p>2. Where in an action against a bridge company on interest coupons detached from, bonds the defense was that, as between defendant and plaintiff’s decedent, the coupons were accommodation paper against the payment of which the latter had agreed to protect the former, and there was no direct evidence in support of the contention, but chief reliance was placed on the testimony of plaintiff’s decedent in an equity proceeding brought by him against a third person who had been associated with him in financing the bridge enterprise, wherein he said that he did not consider that he had any right of action against the bridge company for these coupons and that when the then pending litigation was settled he would turn the coupons over to the bridge company, the statement was not an unqualified admission of a governing fact, such as would have warranted the court in withdrawing the case from the jury.</p> <p>Corporations — Bonds—Coupons—Detached coupons — Statute of limitations — Case for jury.</p> <p>3. Interest coupons are' specialties partaking equally with the bond in the privileges and securities of the latter, whether attached or severed; when coupons are detached from the bonds to which they were formerly annexed, they do not thereby become simple contract debts, and as to the period of limitations, they are governed by the same rules as other sealed instruments.</p> <p>4. An action was brought on interest coupons which had fallen