Case Name: Lessee of Gotliep Reigart against Conrad Haverstock and Christiana Samel
Court: Supreme Court of Pennsylvania
Jurisdiction: Pennsylvania
Decision Date: 1803-11
Citations: 3 Yeates 591
Docket Number: 
Parties: *Lessee of Gotliep Reigart against Conrad Haverstock and Christiana Samel.
Judges: 
Reporter: Reports of cases adjudged in the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania (Yeates)
Volume: 3
Pages: 590–591

Head Matter:
*Lessee of Gotliep Reigart against Conrad Haverstock and Christiana Samel.
An improver of land, whether plaintiff or defendant, who takes out an office-right, and does not insert therein the true date of his improvement, shall not be allowed to give evidence of improvements prior to the time expressed in the office-right.
EjectmeNT for 250 acres of land in Bedford township.
The plaintiff claimed under an application entered 17th November 1766, and a survey thereon made 10th April 1790. The defendants claimed under a warrant dated 2d November 1774, whereon interest was to commence from 1st March 1767, a survey made thereon on the 27th December 1785, and a patent dated 13th April 1786.
The defendant’s counsel offered to shew a settlement made on the lands in question in 1761, and continued since that time.
It was objected, that he could go no further back than 1767, when the interest on his warrant commences;
The defendants replied, that they might shelter themselves under a settlement, prior to the period of interest commencing, as expressed in their warrant, although a plaintiff out of possession was bound thereby and could not do so.

Opinion:
By the Court.
There can be no just ground of distinction between the two cases. When either the plaintiff or defendant attempts to defraud the commonwealth, by not charging themselves with the frill interest from theif respective periods of improvement, it must at least operate as an abandonment of their claim for such intermediate time as they have dropped, and we shall hold them bound thereby. Both instances must rest on the same uniform principle. If indeed the defendant does not shew his warrant or application in evidence, and it is not produced by the adverse party, the defendant may rest on his possession, and prove his settlement from its commencement. Circumstanced as this case is, the objection must be sustained, and so have been our decisions.
The evidence having been gone through, it appeared that the lessor of the plaintiff had been guilty of gross laches, and the court gave a decided charge in favor of the defendants.
Cited in 4 S. & R. 435 in support o£ the proposition that no one should be permitted to allege a settlement at any time prior to the day mentioned in their warrants, for the commencement of interest, because such allegation would be contrary to the averment in their warrants, and would show that they had attempted to defraud the Commonwealth.
Messrs. Duncan and Riddle, pro quer.
Messrs. Watts and Brown, pro def.
The plaintiff suffered a nonsuit.