Sweeney v. Houston

Citations

• 243 Pa. 542
• 90 A. 347
• 1914 Pa. LEXIS 660

Syllabus

<p>Contracts — Action on a contract by a person not a' party — Exceptions to rule — Demurrer.</p> <p>, 1. The rule of the common law that no one can maintain an action in his own .name, upon a contract to which he was not a party, is subject to several exceptions which in Pennsylvania are as well settled as the rule itself. These exceptions include contracts! where one person agrees with another to pay money to a third, or to deliver some valuable thing, and such third party is the only one interested in the payment or the delivery; or where the promise to pay the debt of a third person rests.upon the fact that money or property is placed in the hands of the promissor for that purpose, or where one buys out the stock of a tradesman and undertakes to take the place, fill the contracts and pay the debts of the vendor. But when the promise is made to, and in relief of one to whom the promise is made, upon ■ a consideration moving from him, no particular fund or means of payment being placed in the hands of the promissor out of which the payment is tp be made, there is no trust arising in the promissor and no title passing to the third person, and the right of action is in the original debtor alone.</p> <p>2. In an action of assumpsit it appeared that the allegation upon which the plaintiff sought to recover was that the defendants, for a consideration passing to them from the estate of a decedent, promised to pay all the indebtedness of a firm in which the said estate had an interest and for the indebtedness of which it was liable. Attached to the statement of claim was a copy of a note of the said firm payable t'o the order of the plaintiff and the averment of the plaintiff was that as it was an obligation upon which the.estate of the decedent was liable the defendants assumed its payment. There was no averment in the statement of claim that any assets had been placed in the hands of the defendants for the purpose of paying the indebtedness of the firm. Held, that the