Longenecker v. Zion Evangelical Lutheran Church
Longenecker v. Zion Evangelical Lutheran Church
Opinion of the Court
This was a bill in equity filed by the plaintiff to compel the Zion Evangelical Lutheran Church, M. L. Snyder and Ezra Reist, defendants, to return and reassign to the plaintiff $5,000 of bonds of the county of Lancaster, alleged to have been fraudulently ’obtained by them. An answer was filed to the bill and the case was heard under the equity rules in the court below. An opinion was filed by Judge Landis dismissing the plaintiff’s bill, from which decree the plaintiff appealed. The opinion presented as aforesaid was exhaustive, and satisfactory. It plainly showed that the testimony relied on by the plaintiff was not sufficient to sustain her bill, and that the evidence submitted by the defendants was quite sufficient to render nugatory the allegations of fraud. We therefore affirm the decree dismissing the plaintiff’s bill.
Decree affirmed.
Reference
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- Syllabus
- Gift—Gift of bonds to a church—Evidence. A gift of bonds to a church by an elderly woman in her sound senses, for the consideration of the paymeut of interest to her on the bonds during her life, and a covenant to keep in repair her cemetery lot, will be sustained, where it appears that neither the pastor of the church nor its officers committed any fraud in the transaction, and did not unduly persuade the donor, that the suggestion as to the gift came from a person not connected with .the church, and that the amount of the bonds given was not such a portion of the donor’s estate as would in anywise embarrass her, or seriously diminish it.