Miller v. Miller

Citations

• 119 Pa. 620
• 13 A. 504
• 1888 Pa. LEXIS 581

Syllabus

<p>A husband conveyed to- his wife his interest in real estate devised to him and his brother jointly and subject to the charge of legacies. The brother was in possession and had received the rents and profits for a number of years and paid the legacies charged, when a controversy arose about a judgment held by the brother against the husband and which the former was trying to enforce against the latter’s interest in the land.</p> <p>The husband and wife joined in a bill in equity, in right of the wife, praying for an injunction against the enforcement of the judgment by execution, for an account between the husband and brother and for a decree for the balance due the husband. The account as finally determined showed a balance due from the husband to the defendant: Held,</p> <p>1. That the defendant was entitled to a decree for the payment of this balance against both husband and wife, enforceable against the wife, however, only by the seizure and sale of the lands described in the bill.</p> <p>2. The right to subrogation is not confined to cases of strict suretyship. The rule embraces purchasers in common of an estate bound by a joint lien, and may be enforced whenever one, not a mere volunteer, discharges the debt of another, so as to compel the ultimate discharge by him who in good conscience ought to pay it.</p>