Midland Mining Co. v. Lehigh V. Coal Co.

Citations

• 136 Pa. 444
• 20 A. 634
• 1890 Pa. LEXIS 1043

Syllabus

<p>1. A warrant with a survey thereon, duly returned and accepted, gives the warrantee a title to the land covered by it. A junior warrant located on the same land confers no title, for the commonwealth had none to gi;ant.</p> <p>(a) Tracts now owned by the plaintiff were returned into the land office as surveyed north’ of and adjoining older surveys now owned by the defendant, and the north line of the older tracts was described by its monuments actually on the ground as the south line of the younger.</p> <p>(b) The deeds from the patentee down to the plaintiff followed the description given by the return of survey. Testimony was offered on the trial to show that, notwithstanding the official description and calls, the plaintiff’s tracts were in fact located on top of the older warrants for which they called:</p> <p>2. The evidence offered was irrelevant and immaterial for the following reasons: (1) It showed no title derived from the commonwealth, because her title passed under the first warrant and survey. (2) Moreover, it showed no title derived from the patentee of the first surveys, because (c) Although the owner of both blocks, when he sold the surveys now owned by the plaintiff, he followed the official description of the younger surveys, in his deed, and bounded his grantees on the south by the north line of the older surveys, a well known and plainly marked line on the ground; (d) he neither did nor said anything to mislead his vendees or induce them to think the land he sold them lay elsewhere than on the north of the older surveys; and (e) the north line of the older warrants was actually pointed out on the ground as the south line of the younger block to purchasers through whom the plaintiff claims.</p> <p>3. The vendee, on discovering that he had purchased several tracts having no actual existence, might proceed against the vendor on his covenant or rescind the contract in toto, but could not go over the recognized lines of his purchase and appropriate