Winfield v. Beaver Trust Co.

Citations

• 229 Pa. 530
• 79 A. 138
• 1911 Pa. LEXIS 525

Syllabus

<p>Decedents’ Estates — Executors and Administrators — Wages for domestic services — Boarding—Presumption of.</p> <p>1. Wages for domestic services and board bills are presumed to be paid at stated intervals, and when a claim for such services is presented against a decedent’s estate, extending over any great length of time, the burden is on the claimant to rebut the presumption by affirmative evidence. Loose declarations of the decedent whose estate is sought to be charged are not sufficient to support such a claim.</p> <p>2. In an action against an administrator to recover for services rendered to and board furnished the decedent, where it appears that the plaintiff, a grandnephew, eighteen years of age, who had been employed as common laborer, lived with the decedent two years and nine months, until the latter, six months before his death, broke up housekeeping and lived with friends elsewhere; that the services performed by the plaintiff consisted of sweeping, making beds, attending to fires, cooking and taking care of the house; that the claim was for wages covering the whole period when the plaintiff and decedent lived together and for board for about half of it; and there is no proof of payments made by the decedent or of a demand therefor during his life or of a contract of employment and the plaintiff relies entirely on proof of declarations made by the decedent during the time the plaintiff lived with him, to the effect that he would pay him for the services or would see that he was well paid, a judgment for the defendant non obstante veredicto will not be reversed.</p>