Case Name: Lessee of Bartram Galbraith against Philip Mauss
Court: Supreme Court of Pennsylvania
Jurisdiction: Pennsylvania
Decision Date: 1797-10
Citations: 2 Yeates 244
Docket Number: 
Parties: Lessee of Bartram Galbraith against Philip Mauss.
Judges: CORAM, M’KEAN, CHIEE JUSTICE, AND VEATES.
Reporter: Reports of cases adjudged in the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania (Yeates)
Volume: 2
Pages: 244–244

Head Matter:
AT NISI PRIUS, AT SUNBURY,
OCTOBER ASSIZES, 1797.
CORAM, M’KEAN, CHIEE JUSTICE, AND VEATES.
Lessee of Bartram Galbraith against Philip Mauss.
Evidence shall not be received of the party’s intentions to assist an indescriptive application, but his intentions may be given in evidence against him.
Ejectment for 700'acres of land in Mahoning township.
On argument the court ruled, that parol evidence of a party’s intentions in entering an application for lands in the secretary’s office, cannot be received to assist or bolster up an indescriptive location of the lands in controversy. The efficacy of an application must depend on the written words of it; this is the only notice the applier gives of his intentions to appropriate certain lands, and the adverse party sha.ll only be affected therewith. Absolute precise certainty, however, is not to be expected in the descriptions of lands to be surveyed in a new country. It has been often said, that they need only to be certain to a common intent; yet the intentions of an applier for lands may be given in evidence against him to defeat his pretensions to the object in dispute, by showing that he intended to locate other lands. Because the mischiefs and inconvenience attending the former case do not exist here. The rest of mankind are not prejudiced or injured by such testimony; it only affects the party who declares his views and designs jn the contract, to what particular spot he considered it as referable.
Messrs. C. Smith and Hall, fro quer.
Messrs. Clymer, Duncan and Biddle, pro def.

Opinion:
Yerdict for the defendant.