Richards v. Walp

Citations

• 221 Pa. 412
• 70 A. 815
• 1908 Pa. LEXIS 497

Syllabus

<p>Debtor and creditor — Payment—Presumption of payment — Evidence.</p> <p>The presumption of payment of a debt arises at the end of twenty years after the debt became due and demandable, and such presumption increases in strength each succeeding year afterwards. The burden of overcoming it is upon the creditor, and the sufficiency of the evidence offered is for the court.</p> <p>The presumption is equal to direct proof of payment, and it will prevail until overcome by direct proof of nonpayment, or the proof of facts and circumstances from which nonpayment may be clearly inferred.</p> <p>A scire facias sur mortgage was issued in 1903, to collect two installments of purchase money of $933.33 each, one due in 1876 and the other in 1877. The mortgage also secured the payment of $1,000 on the death of a widow who had a dower interest but who was living when the scire facias issued. The plaintiff offered testimony to rebut the presumption of payment, to the effect that in 1886 the mortgagor, after the death of the mortgagee intestate, leaving a husband and nine children surviving her, asked her son-in-law to aid in getting her heirs to sign off the back money due on the mortgage, and had offered to pay the heirs sums of money amounting to $600, and was told that they could not sign off because they were not of age. Held, that the testimony was insufficient to show that the installments of $933.33 each were not paid at the time the statement was made, since all that was said would apply as well, and even better, to the $1,000 which was then unpaid.</p>