Pennsylvania Co. for Insurance on Lives & Granting Annuities v. Singheiser

Citations

• 235 Pa. 241
• 84 A. 141
• 1912 Pa. LEXIS 534

Syllabus

<p>Ground rents — Husband and wife — Merger—Extinguishment— Act of April 27, 1855, P. L. 868 and June U, 1897, P. L. U9.</p> <p>In 1858, a wife became owner of real estate subject to a ground rent. After she acquired the real estate and before any rent became due, her husband in the same year purchased the ground rent. In 1871 the wife died leaving the real estate subject to the ground rent to her husband for life with remainder over to her descendants. The husband died in 1900. No ground rent was paid during the wife’s ownership of the land or the husband’s life tenancy. During the husband’s life tenancy he endorsed on the envelope containing the ground rent deed, that the rent was “to be collected at my death.” The husband left a will by which he gave his estate to a trustee for his second wife and a child by her. Eight years after the husband’s death the owner of the land filed a petition against the trustee praying for the extinguishment of the ground rent. Held, (1) that, as the husband could not sue his wife, the Act of April 27, 1855, P. L. 368 did not run during the thirteen years in which the husband owned the ground rent and the wife the land; (2) that the Act of 1855 had no application during the nineteen years of the husband’s life tenancy, inasmuch as his endorsement on the envelope of the ground rent deed indicated his recognition of the existence of the ground rent, and the law did not require him to do the vain thing of paying as the owner of the land the ground rent to himself as owner of the rent; (3) that the ground rent was not extinguished, under the circumstances, although no rent had in fact been paid from 1858 to the filing of the petition in 1908.</p> <p>Mr. Justice Potter and Mr. Justice Elkin dissent.</p>