Mellon v. Davison

Citations

• 123 Pa. 298
• 16 A. 431
• 1889 Pa. LEXIS 655

Syllabus

<p>1. A contract for the sale of lands is within the statute of frauds and therefore void and unenforceable, if parol testimony be required to establish any essential part of it: Hammer v. McEldowney, 46 Pa. 334; Ferguson v. Staver, 33 Pa. 413.</p> <p>2. Thé alleged vendor’s receipt for a payment on account of “Hie price to be paid to me for a lot of ground fronting about 190 feet on the P. R. R., in the Twenty-first ward, Pittsburgh,” failing to identify and describe the land sold, is inadmissible in proof of title.</p> <p>3. And such receipt may not be effectively supplemented by parol testimony that unattached pencil sketches, locating the property in outline but unconnected with the receipt by internal reference, were made and delivered by the vendor when the receipt was signed; that the land described in the receipt “ applies ” to the land described in the writ, and that the vendor owned at the time no other real estate in said ward.</p>