Meigs v. Bunting

Citations

• 141 Pa. 233
• 21 A. 588
• 1891 Pa. LEXIS 1065

Syllabus

<p>[To be reported.]</p> <p>1. When a mortgage and a judgment are given as cumulative securities for the same debt, a satisfaction entered upon one is presumed, as between the parties, to be on account of a payment of the debt, and therefore, to include a satisfaction of the other; but this is a rebuttable presumption.</p> <p>2. If the debt be not actually paid, the result, as between the parties, of the entry of satisfaction upon one of the securities, will depend upon their intention; as they have an unquestionable right to extinguish one security, and yet keep the other alive and maintain it as an existing encumbrance.</p> <p>3. A purchaser at sheriff’s sale is not bound to look into the actual facts of payment or the intention of the parties, further than they have been made accessible to him upon the record: Magaw v. Garrett, 25 Fa. 319; Coyne v. Souther, 61 Pa. 455; Reading v. Hopson, 90 Pa. 494; Saunders v. Gould, 134 Pa. 445.</p> <p>4. Wherefore, when a mortgage has been satisfied of record, but a judgment for the same debt still stands apparently in force, such purchaser may rely upon the record as conclusive evidence that the parties have exercised their right to keep the judgment alive, and therefore, that the sale will discharge a mortgage subsequent thereto.</p> <p>5. If, in such ease, a rule to open the judgment is pending at the time of the sheriff’s sale, the purchaser will be unaffected thereby; being entitled to rely upon the legal effect of the judgment, so long as it stands on the record unmodified by the court, he assumes no risk as to the result of the controversy.</p>