Thomas's Estate

Citations

• 36 Pa. Super. 186
• 1908 Pa. Super. LEXIS 132

Syllabus

<p>Equity — Orphans’ court — Evidence—Cancellation of agreement — Refusal to enforce agreement — Family settlement.</p> <p>Where a plaintiff in an equity case has failed to secure the cancellation of an agreement in the nature of a family settlement, and subsequently in- the orphans’ court seeks to prevent the execution of the agreement, and the latter court, after an independent consideration of the testimony, which was substantially the same, and a great part identical with that in the equity case, sustains the agreement, the appellate court will uphold the decree of the orphans’ court, where there is nothing shown in equity and good conscience why the terms of the agreement should not be specifically performed.</p> <p>In such a case where the plaintiff and the defendant in the equity suit are entitled under the agreement to equal shares in the residue of the estate, the plaintiff has no ground to complaint of the court’s action in deducting the costs of the equity suit from the residue and dividing the balance between the two distributees. The effect is to relieve plaintiff of one-half of the costs of his unsuccessful equity suit.</p>