Horner v. Thompson
Horner v. Thompson
Opinion of the Court
Opinion by
By articles of agreement, dated December 31,1904, duly executed, acknowledged and delivered, the defendant, John W. Thompson, purchased from the plaintiff, Leonard Horner, Jr., about thirty acres of land located in Logan township, Blair county, Pennsylvania, for the price of $6.00 per acre, paying $8.00 in hand at the date of the agreement and the balance of the purchase money was to be paid annually as stipulated in the contract. By the terms of the agreement, default in making any of the payments when due caused the entire purchase money to become due and payable at once. The defendant defaulted and on demand refused to pay the purchase money and the plaintiff brought this equitable action of ejectment to enforce specific performance of the contract.
The plaintiff, at the trial, made a prima facie case by showing an application for vacant land, a warrant for the survey of the same, return of the survey and a patent from the commonwealth for a larger tract of land of which the thirty acres described in the contract were a part. We here remark that there seems to be no question that the defendant executed, acknowledged and delivered the contract and that he did not comply with its terms but neglected and refused to pay the purchase money therein reserved.
The defense set up was a claim to the land as the defendant’s own under a settlement and improvement right. It appeared in evidence at the trial that the defendant in 1896 bought of the Brotherline heirs ten acres of land, located in said township of Logan and being a part of the Richard Robeson tract adjoining the lands described in the agreement above mentioned. The defendant had his purchase from the Brotherline heirs surveyed and the lines marked on the ground; he built himself a house, stable
The vacant land adjoining the Robeson survey was taken up by the plaintiff by an application for a warrant, filed December 5,1898, and a return of survey thereof was made March 15,1899, and a patent for the land was issued to plaintiff on March 29, 1899. The quantity of this vacant land surveyed and patented to the plaintiff was about 106 acres. When the county surveyor, William Fraser, had nearly completed running the lines of the vacant lands upon the plaintiff’s warrant, it was discovered that the defendant’s purchase from the Brotherlines overlapped on the vacant lands, and that a part of defendant’s buildings and improvements were on said vacant land to the extent of nearly four acres. This was as contended by plaintiff, but the defendant claimed that he had the ten acres purchased from the Brotherlines and about four acres more where his house stood on the vacant lands. The defendant’s contention that he was advised by the surveyor to place his buildings upon the vacant lands was pointedly
It appears from the undisputed testimony that immediately after the survey the defendant went to see the-plaintiff and agreed upon a purchase of the four acres where his house was located for the sum of $12.00 and paid the same to the plaintiff and directed that a deed for the land be made to his wife and this was subsequently done.
There is absolutely no evidence that the defendant ever marked or established any line or lines to any portion of the vacant land, embraced in the plaintiff’s warrant, survey and patent, except to the four acres above referred to, and although it may have been wrong for the surveyor to include that land within the plaintiff’s survey, yet it seems to have been done at the request of the defendant, and the plaintiff conveyed it to the defendant’s wife, at his request, and, therefore, we cannot see that any harm whatever resulted to the defendant by this survey.
The learned trial judge was of the opinion, and so charged the jury, that the character of the defendant’s claim and the amount of land that he claimed out of the vacant tract was so indefinite that it would be entirely unsafe to allow him to recover in this case on the ground that he really owned the thirty acres, by settlement and occupation, which he purchased from the plaintiff by the contract above referred to. We have reached the conclusion that the learned judge fell into error in charging the jury, as quoted in the second assignment of error. In substance, he instructed them that if the county surveyor in surveying the plaintiff’s warrant for the vacant land included within the lines the defendant’s four acres where his house was located, that the survey, warrant and patent would all be void, “because, as I have said before, the county surveyor ought to stop when he got to that point, and if he went on in violation of his duty and caused this litigation for the Horners and for Thompson, it does seem to me that the warrant and patent would be void on the ground of public policy.” We do not think this is the law.
As we view this case we do not feel called upon to discuss the assignments of error separately nor are we convinced that any of the remaining assignments should be sustained. In our opinion, when the case shall be again tried, if the evidence shall be substantially as it is in the present record, the learned trial judge should instruct the jury that if they believe the testimony of the county surveyor, and the other witnesses corroborating him, and believe that the defendant purchased the thirty acres of land described in the agreement of December 31,1904, and that he had defaulted in the payment of the purchase money, that the verdict should be in favor of the plaintiff for the land described in said agreement, to be released on the payment of the balance of the purchase money due the plaintiff, with interest and costs, within such reasonable time as shall seem just and equitable to the jury.'
The second assignment of error is sustained, and the judgment is reversed with a venire facias de novo.
Case-law data current through December 31, 2025. Source: CourtListener bulk data.