Weir v. Washington Trust Co.

Citations

• 263 Pa. 72
• 106 A. 88
• 1919 Pa. LEXIS 376

Syllabus

<p>Mortgage — Assignment — Principal and agent — Signature — Fraud — Findings of fact — Review—Two innocent parties.</p> <p>1. The findings of fact of a chancellor that the signature of the assignor to an assignment of a mortgage is genuine, will not be reversed on appeal, where there is sufficient credible evidence to support the findings and there is no manifest error.</p> <p>2. Where an owner of a portion of a mortgage executes an assignment thereof to a trust company and delivers it to another person, and such person, after having had it recorded, takes the recorder’s certificate, the original mortgage and certificate of no defense to the trust company, and receives the money due, and embezzles it, the assignor cannot thereafter claim that the payment by the trust company was improper, on the ground that the person to whom it was paid was the company’s agent. Such person was not the agent of the company, and, as the assignor’s acts made the embezzlement possible, the loss must fall upon him.</p>