Case ID: pa_197/html/0067-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Mb. Justice Bbown,", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

American Brewing Company v. Reinsburrow.
    
      Mortgage —Married women—Evidence.
    
    On a scire facias sur mortgage given by a married woman to secure the debt of her husband, the court commits no error in refusing to allow the defendant to avoid her mortgage on her own testimony, not only uncorroborated, but contradicted by that of the only witness heard on her behalf, that fraud and duress had been practiced upon her.
    Argued May 1, 1900.
    Appeal, No. 127, Jan. T., 1900, by defendant, from judgment of C. P. Warren Co., Dec. T., 1898, No. 6, on verdict for plaintiff in case of American Brewing Company v. Melissa Reinsburrow.
    Before McCollum, Mitchell, Dean, Fell and Blown, JJ.
    Affirmed.
    Scire facias sur mortgage. Before Lindsay, P. J.
    The facts sufficiently appear by the opinion of the Supreme Court.
    
      Error assigned was in refusing defendant’s offer, as stated in the opinion of the Supreme Court.
    
      W. W. Wilbur, of Wilbur Sf Sehnur, with him Allen Sons, for appellant.
    —Under all the evidence we submit that the case was for the jury and not for the court, according to the decisions of this court in the following cases: Cridge v. Hare, 98 Pa. 561; Cover v. Manaway, 115 Pa. 345; Heeter v. Glasgow, 79 Pa. 83; Williams v. Baker, 71 Pa. 476; McCandless v. Engle, 51 Pa. 309; Schrader v. Decker, 9 Pa. 15.
    
      W. JE. Rice, with him W. B. Hinckley, for appellee.
    —We are aware of no case that has been decided in this state where a married women has been allowed to impeach the official certificate of the due execution and acknowledgment of a deed or mortgage by her own uncorroborated testimony. The contrary has been decided: Kaufmann v. Rowan, 189 Pa. 121; Citizen’s Saving & Loan Assn. v. Heiser, 150 Pa. 514; Oppenheimer v. Wright, 106 Pa. 569.
    July 11,1900:
   Opinion by

Mb. Justice Bbown,

The case below was a scire facias upon a mortgage given by a married woman, Melissa Reinsburrow, to secure the debt of her husband to the appellee. Under binding instructions, the verdict was in favor of the plaintiff, and the single assignment of error relates to the refusal of the court to allow the appellant to avoid her mortgage on her own testimony, not only uncorroborated, but contradicted by that of the only witness heard on her behalf, that fraud and duress had been practiced upon her. Bennett, whose testimony, taken at a former trial, was offered by the defendant, test"Red that he was in the room when Mrs. Reinsburrow executed the mortgage, having gone there with Mr. Reinsburrow, the husband, and the justice of the peace; that he saw her sign it; that she made no objection whatever to signing it, and that L. Reinsburrow, the husband, did not, in his hearing, say that, unless she executed it, he would be arrested. He further testified that, after it had been signed, he and the husband, at the request of Bradley, the justice of the peace, went into the hall and remained there until the wife’s acknowledgment had been taken. Tn the face of this testimony, introduced by the defendant herself, she boldly proposed to testify that when the instrument was presented to her for her signature, her husband told her that “ it was a paper for the sum of |1,800; that she refused to sign the paper, and he then told her it was for the debt he owed to the American Brewing .Company, and that if she did not sign it he would be arrested and they would lock him up, and that she must sign it; that she declined to do so; that he then raised her up in bed, placed a pen in her hand and the paper before her, and holding her hand with the pen in it, physically guided her hand, signing her name to the mortgage against her will; that during the transaction the said agent [Bennett] and justice were in the room in sight and hearing; that the justice then asked her if she acknowledged the paper, to which she did not give her assent; that when he did so, her husband and the agent were in sight and hearing. ” Broad as this offer was, it was not proposed to prove that the justice of the peace had not informed Mrs. Reinsburrow of the full contents of the mortgage before she acknowledged it. The court having disallowed the offer, counsel for the defendant stated that they had nothing further to submit, and the verdict was directed for the plaintiff.

The refusal of the learned trial judge to permit this appellant, after she herself had proven by her own witness her due execution and acknowledgment of the mortgage, to testify to what was embraced in the overruled offer was so manifestly correct, that we are at a loss to understand how it can be seriously questioned. A married woman may mortgage her separate estate to secure the payment of her husband’s debt, and, when she does so mortgage it, she is bound by her deed. To allow her to avoid it, as this appellant seeks to avoid hers, would indeed, in the words of Paxson, J., in Oppenheimer v. Wright, 106 Pa. 569, be to allow her mortgage to become “as worthless as the paper upon which it is written.”

The assignment of error is overruled and the judgment affirmed.