Case ID: pa-super_83/html/0192-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Per Curiam,", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Lapensohn v. Swann et ux., Appellants.
    
      Judgments — Judgment for possession — Rule to open judgment— Refusal.
    
    A rule to open a judgment of possession is properly discharged, where the depositions establish that the plaintiff had expressed a willingness to enter into a contract of lease under certain conditions, and that the appellant had failed to comply with those conditions, and that no written lease had ever been executed.
    Argued March 11, 1924.
    Appeal, No. 57, Oct. T., 1924, by defendants, from judgment of C. P. No. 3, Phila. Co., March T., 1922, No. 6670, discharging rule to open judgment in the case of Simon Lapensohn v. Thomas W. Swann and Ossie W. Swann, his wife.
    Before Orlady, P. J., Porter, Henderson, Trexler, Keller, Linn and Gawthrop, JJ.
    Affirmed.
    Rule to open judgment. Before Ferguson, J.
    The facts are stated in the following opinion of the court below dicharging the rule.
    This is a proceeding to recover possession after sheriff’s sale. A judgment had been entered for the petitioner and the matter had been appealed. Whether as the result of an agreement of settlement or for technical reasons, the appeal was nolle prossed. A plures writ of possession was issued and the respondents have taken a rule to open judgment.
    There is no defect in the judgment, but respondents contend that since the appeal was nolle prossed the petitioner and the respondents entered into a contract of letting under which rent had been paid.
    The depositions show that petitioner, through a member of the bar, other than counsel of record, had expressed a willingness to enter into a contract of letting, provided the rental value of the house from September of 1922, was paid. The respondents attempted to carry out this arrangement, but failed to pay the amount stipulated for. No lease in writing was executed by the petitioner. One was prepared and sent to the respondents for signature, with the understanding that it would be signed by the petitioner and delivered after the arrears were paid. This writing was never signed by the petitioner and delivered, and, as a contract between the parties, never came into effect.
    For these reasons the rule to stay the writ of possession and to open the judgment must be discharged.
    And now, May 3,1923, the rule entered to stay and set aside the execution of pluries writ of hab. fi., issued in this case and to open the judgment heretofore entered and to let the defendants into a defense is discharged.
    
      Error assigned was, among others, the order of the court.
    
      John W. Parks, for appellant.
    
      Joseph D. Morelli, and with him Yale L. Schekter, for appellee.
    May 5, 1924:
   Per Curiam,

The order appealed from is affirmed, for the reasons stated by Judge Ferguson in the opinion in the court below.