Tozier v. Brown

Citations

• 202 Pa. 359
• 51 A. 998
• 1902 Pa. LEXIS 522

Syllabus

<p>Equity — Accounting—Laches.</p> <p>A court of equity has always refused its aid to stale demands, where the party has slept upon his right, and acquiesced for a great length of time. Nothing can call forth this court into activity but conscience, good faith and reasonable diligence; where these are wanting the court is passive and does nothing. Laches and neglect are always discountenanced, and therefore, from the beginning of this jurisdiction, there was always a limitation to suits in this court.</p> <p>A bill in equity for an accounting for logs which the plaintiffs claimed to have cut under a contract abandoned by them more than twenty yeai-s before the bill was filed, will be dismissed, where it appears that during the twenty years plaintiffs made no attempt to assert their rights, that for seventeen years prior to the filing of the bill, no logs which could be identified as having been cut by the paintiffs, came in to the defendants’ possession, that some of the parties to the contract were dead, others could not be found, and checks and vouchers for payments made by defendants had been destroyed.</p>