Chase v. Provident Life & Trust Co.
Chase v. Provident Life & Trust Co.
Opinion of the Court
Opinion by
From plaintiff’s statement and papers filed and not disputed, we gather the averments of the following facts :
On these averments of facts Chase, the plaintiff, brought suit against the Provident Trust Company for the $19,500 excess, the excess over and above the $37,500 included in the bonds which the mortgages were given to secure. He alleges a loss to this extent, and averred that the Provident Company by releasing the Title Company has violated its agreement with
To this elaborate statement of plaintiff’s claim defendant made affidavit of defense, averring that it had no connection whatever with the negotiations between Burleigh and Chase; that it agreed to loan to Burleigh on the bonds and mortgages amounting (face value, to $57,000) to $87,500 in cash ; that it was not privy to nor concerned in the conveyance to Burleigh by Chase of certain real estate in Philadelphia of the value of $19,500 ; that in placing on record the deed for the same by the Land Title and Trust Company it was not, and did not, act as agent for the Provident Life and Trust Company; that it knew the Title Company only as an insurer of the title to the property ; that the Title Company was to make settlement with the parties before handing over the money, and therefore it took from the Title Company a receipt which stipulates, “ If settlement is not made money is to be returned on demand with interest.” That the agreement with plaintiff was, necessarily, merely contingent upon a settlement and the loan being actually made to Burleigh upon the bonds and mortgages and the delivery of the same to the Provident Trust Company; that the settlement was not consummated nor was the loan made ; that so far as defendant is informed no title ever vested in Burleigh, the mortgagor, and no bonds and mortgages were ever delivered by him to the Provident Company; that the money was returned to the Provident Trust Company by the Land Title Company, with the statement that the parties had been unable to complete their arrangements and make settlement.
Plaintiff took a rule on defendant for judgment for want of a sufficient affidavit of defense, which rule the court below discharged after hearing, without filing an opinion. We now have this appeal by plaintiff, alleging for error the decree of the court.
From the record this transaction is not clear. The exact relation of the parties to the loan and to each other, is either not fully disclosed by the statement of plaintiff and affidavit of defendant, or from its nature is somewhat obscure. Burleigh applied to Chase for a loan of $57,000, which nominally was granted by Chase, the loan to be made up of $37,500 cash and
So far as appears, the transaction on the last named day had not been completed; the mortgage and bonds of Burleigh, according to the affidavit of defendant, on the security of which it had made the loan, had not been delivered; nor according to the writings made part of the record, the insurance policies clearly had not been delivered, in fact the loan of $37,500 to Burleigh on which everything depended had not yet been made. Both parties, Chase and the Provident Company, seem to have assumed it would be made and on that assumption they made the contract of March 26, 1902. Both assumed a contingency would happen; it was to the interest of both that it should happen, but neither undertook by the contract to guarantee to the other that it would happen, and neither is bound to the other for any loss from its failure to happen.
The Provident Company failed to make its loan to Burleigh because, for some reasons not disclosed, the Title Company and Burleigh failed to come to terms. This left the parties to stand just where they were when Chase applied to the Provident Company for the loan of $37,500 to Burleigh. He, probably, prematurely made his deed to Burleigh for the $19,500 worth of real estate; that deed for some reason went into the hands of the Title Company which immediately placed it on record; but upon the apparent facts and averments, that mistake is a subject for correction by equity proceedings between the parties to it, not of answerability by the Provident Company which company makes oath, that it was not a party to nor had it any connection with the $19,500 conveyance of real estate.
We think, if the averments of fact in the affidavit be sustained and the proper interpretation be put upon the agreement between plaintiff and defendant of March 26, 1902, the issue must go to the jury. While plaintiff, from his averments, may. have sustained a loss, he sustained that loss not because the Provident Trust Company, from its averment in the affidavit, causelessly broke its agreement with him, but because the Title Company and Burleigh failed to come to terms in relation to the insurance policies. Therefore, the decree of the court below is affirmed.
We cannot but again advert to the utter futility of the act
Reference
- Full Case Name
- Chase v. Provident Life and Trust Company
- Status
- Published
- Syllabus
- Contract—Advanced money—Conveyance • In an action against a trust company, it appeared from the statement arid-affidavit of defense that about a year before the action was brought , one B. applied to plaintiff for a loan of $57,000 which nominally was granted by plaintiff. The loan was to be made up of $37,500 cash and a ■conveyanceby plaintiff of $19,500 in value of land. Plaintiff then ap- - plied-to the trust company, defendant, to loan the cash toB. on bonds and ■mortgages of $57,000 which B. had proposed tó give to plaintiff. The trust company agreed to furnish the cash, $37,500. Subsequently the trust company addressed itself to a title company with which plaintiff had been negotiating, requesting the title company as insurers of the title of the land covered by the mortgages to observe certain forms and stipulations and stating that the trust company would hand over $37,500 cash to the title company on receipt of settlement certificate and compliance with certain terms specified. Subsequently the trust company, paid to the title company the $37,500, less a small fee. No settlement certificate had yet been issued, nor insurance policies delivered to the trust company, nor had the mortgage and bonds of B. been delivered, although plaintiff had executed his deed for the $19,500 for real estate and had delivered it to the title company which had placed it upon record. The title company gave a receipt for the money to the trust company, which stipulated “ if settlement is not made, money is to be returned on demand with interest.” When the transaction was in this unfinished position plaintiff and the trust company entered into an agreement by which plaintiff was to have an interest in the mortgages to the amount of $19,500 subordinate to the $37,500 of the trust company. The title company and B. failed to come to terms and subsequently the title company returned the money to the trust company with the statement that the parties were unable to complete their arrangements. Held, that plaintiff’s rule for judgment for $19,500 against the trust company for want of a sufficient affidavit of defense was properly discharged. Appeals—Judgment—Affidavit of defense—Act of April 18, 1874. The Act of April 18, 1874, P. L. 64, authorizing appeals from the com- ’ mon pleas where the court refuses to enter judgment for want of a sufficient affidavit of defense, criticised.