Sourwine v. Claypool

Citations

• 138 Pa. 126
• 20 A. 840
• 1890 Pa. LEXIS 1247

Syllabus

<p>[To be reported.]</p> <p>(а) A father, by way of a gift to Ms married daughter, contributed $400 toward the purchase of a tract of land, made by her husband, intending that the money should go into the land for her benefit. Afterwards, learning that the daughter’s husband had taken a deed for the land in his own name, the father procured from him a judgment note for the $400.</p> <p>(б) The husband having sold the land by articles of agreement, the father, who was holding the note in trust for his daughter, entered it, levied upon, and bought at sheriff’s sale the legal title to the land. Thereupon, by ejectment against the equitable vendee, he collected from the latter the unpaid purchase money, amounting less expenses to $600:</p> <p>1. The gift of $400, made to the daughter, having been executed by the payment of it for her use, without reserving any dominion over it, a valid trust for her benefit arose when the father took the judgment therefor ; wherefore, she was the beneficial owner of the legal title acquired by the sheriff’s sale and of the purchase money collected by the ejectment.</p> <p>2. In an action by the daughter against her father’s executor to recover the $600 collected by the testator, her claim did not rest upon a parol gift of land, but upon a gift of the $400; and the father’s deliberate admissions to third persons, if sufficiently clear, full and precise, and related to existing facts and not to a mere intention, are competent to establish the gift.</p>