Sutherland v. Ross

Citations

• 140 Pa. 379
• 21 A. 354
• 1891 Pa. LEXIS 851

Syllabus

<p>1. When the defendant in ejectment claims under a deed purporting to be signed and acknowledged by the plaintiff and his wife, and to convey the land in dispute to a deceased assignor of the defendant, neither of the alleged grantors is a competent witness to testify that the signatures appended to the deed are forgeries, and the certificate of acknowledgment untrue.</p> <p>2. This is so, even though the deceased grantee in the deed was not present at its alleged execution, but was represented by an agent who is alive and competent to testify to the whole transaction; as clause (e), § 5, act of May 23, 1887, T. L. 158, applies, not only to transactions with a deceased party to the thing or contract in action, but to any matter occurring before his death.</p> <p>3. The identity of interest between husband and wife is such that where one of them is incompetent to testify, either as being the surviving party to the thing or contract in action, or as being a person whose interest is adverse to the right of a deceased or lunatic person therein, which has passed to and is represented by a 2>arty on the record, the other is incompetent also: Bitner v. Boone, 128 Pa. 567.</p>