Midland Gas Co. v. Jefferson Connty Gas Co.

Citations

• 237 Pa. 602
• 85 A. 853
• 1912 Pa. LEXIS 973

Syllabus

<p>Recording acts — Unacknowledged assignment of oil lease — Probate by prothonotary.</p> <p>1. The prothonotary of the Court of Common Pleas has no authority to take the probate of an unacknowledged assignment of an oil and gas lease for the purpose of placing the same on record. If he does so such record is a nullity, and is not evidence for any purpose.</p> <p>Lease — Oil and gas lease — Assignment—Estoppel—Receipts.</p> <p>2. Where there has been a bona fide assignment of an oil and gas lease to another party, and this party subsequently with the consent of the lessors cancels and surrenders the lease to them, a person claiming to be the owner of the lease under an earlier assignment cannot, in the absence of any evidence to sustain the alleged assignment to himself, stop the lessors from making a second lease to another party by inducing them to accept rentals under the original lease by falsely representing that some fraud had been perpetrated in the cancellation and surrender of the lease, and that the lease in fact belonged to him. The receipts given for rental paid under such circumstances cannot be treated as evidence of a written contract of lease of the land.</p>