Smith v. Loafman

Citations

• 145 Pa. 628
• 23 A. 395
• 1892 Pa. LEXIS 771

Syllabus

<p>1. A married woman, who acquired title to lands on the execution and delivery of judgment bonds for the purchase money, cannot defend against the bonds on the ground that her only title came from a concurrent quit-claim conveyance from a prior grantee of the same grantor, and that the bonds as to her were therefore unenforceable.</p> <p>(as) The obligee of the bonds, the father of the defendant, was dead. It was alleged, further, that in release of payment he had voluntarily destroyed the bonds in his lifetime. That a close confidential relation existed at the time thereof was not denied, and there was strong evidence that the obligee was also of extreme weakness, bodily and mental;</p> <p>2. In such case, the burden was on the defendant to show that, in the destruction of the bonds for the purpose alleged, not only was the transaction righteous and conscientious, but that the obligee had acted therein intelligently, deliberately and freely; and this, though his disorder was merely temporary, and not operative at the particular time.</p> <p>3. The alleged destruction of the bonds being voluntary and not on the footing of a contract upon a substantial consideration, it was competent, as bearing on the question of undue influence, for the plaintiff’s executors to prove declarations of the obligee, before his capacity was questioned, to the effect that he intended the bonds should be paid.</p>