Parry v. Parry

Citations

• 130 Pa. 94
• 18 A. 628
• 1889 Pa. LEXIS 1165

Syllabus

<p>(а) Plaintiff in ejectment claimed title to an undivided one sixth of a tract of land as one of the heirs of Parry, who bought from Hoover in 18S6, paid part of the purchase money, and in 1866 abandoned his family, left the land in the possession of Mrs. Parry and certain of their children, and did not again return to it.</p> <p>(б) A deed was made by Hoover to Mrs. Parry in 1867 and her husband died in Ohio in 1882. Mrs. Parry died in 1885, leaving a will devising the land to two of her sons, one of whom was the defendant, who subsequently acquired the title of the other devisee by deed of quit-claim.</p> <p>(c) There was evidence that the deed to Mrs. Parry, though executed in 1867, was not delivered until several years afterward, when she had paid or secured the unpaid purchase money; and that it was then delivered to her in the presence and with the acquiescence of her husband.</p> <p>(d) The plaintiff claimed, however, under the evidence adduced by him, that the deed to Mrs. Parry under which the defendant held, had been obtained from Hoover without his father’s consent and in fraud of his rights, and upon this issue the cause was submitted to the jury.</p> <p>1. In such case, although the plaintiff had put in evidence the deed of Hoover to his mother, as a part of the alleged scheme to get the title away from his father, plaintiff was not thereby estopped from attacking its validity on the ground that it had been obtained in fraud of his father’s rights.</p> <p>2. The subject in controversy was the validity of the deed to Mrs. Parry, who was dead; wherefore, although the brother who had conveyed to the defendant was competent to testify in support of it, the plaintiff Was incompetent to testify against it: § 5, clause (e), act of May 28, 1887, P. L. 158.</p> <p>3. The declarations of the husband in his lifetime, in his own interest, and not made in the presence of his wife, were inadmissible as evidence that the title had been obtained by Mrs. Parry without