Fidelity Insurance Trust & Safe Deposit Co. v. Commonwealth Title Insurance
Fidelity Insurance Trust & Safe Deposit Co. v. Commonwealth Title Insurance
Opinion of the Court
Opinion by
This suit was prematurely brought. The defendant is a stakeholder, and only liable to plaintiff on certain conditions which have not been performed. These conditions, so far as
The appellant however is substantially correct in its interpretation of the agreement on which the rights of the parties rest. As a stranger to the attachment suit the plaintiff had no standing to intermeddle with it, or to require the Pennsylvania Company to do anything with regard to it. But by the agreement of December, 1888, the Pennsylvania Company recognized plaintiff’s interest in the land and in the litigation, and having agreed to the substitution of the plaintiffs money for the land, has subjected itself to certain duties to the plaintiff, one of which is to go on, and bring the attachment to an end. It w'as not in the contemplation of the parties that the Pennsylvania Company should do nothing, and simply keep the plaintiff’s money tied up in the deposit, with no benefit to either. The agreement authorizes the plaintiff to intervene in the attachment and move for its dissolution, and on the other hand puts on the Pennsylvania Company the duty of prosecuting its attachment to a successful termination by the establishment of the liability of the land. Appellant’s only mistake was in proceeding in the first instance against the stakeholder, and not against the Pennsylvania Company under the agreement. This it might do by bill in equity, or by a rule in the attachment suit to intervene and compel the plaintiff therein to go on or be nonsuited. So far as the case now appears, the equity powers' of the court in which the attachment is pending are sufficient
Judgment affirmed.
Case-law data current through December 31, 2025. Source: CourtListener bulk data.