Case Name: PARKER and others against LUFFBOROUGH
Court: Supreme Court of Pennsylvania
Jurisdiction: Pennsylvania
Decision Date: 1823-09-26
Citations: 10 Serg. & Rawle 249
Docket Number: 
Parties: PARKER and others against LUFFBOROUGH.
Judges: 
Reporter: Reports of cases adjudged in the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania (Sergeant & Rawle)
Volume: 10
Pages: 249–250

Head Matter:
[Pittsburg,
September 26, 1823.)
PARKER and others against LUFFBOROUGH.
In error.
- it seems as respects third persons, a person acting as an assessor is to be considered as such, although he has not taken the oath of office.
Parol evidence may be given to show that a mistake was made in the affidavit of an assessor filed in the office.
Ejectment in the Court of Common Pleas of--county, by Nathan Luffborough, plaintiff below, against William Parker and Joseph Jenkins. The plaintiff deduced title to himself from the commonwealth. The defendants gave in evidence a deed to him from the sheriff under a sale for taxes, and proved by the clerk of the county commissioners, that after diligent search, no return of the election of an assessor for the township on which the land lay, for the year 1807,' could be found, and then read in evidence from the minute book of the commissioners, in which was contained the list of assesors appointed for the year 1807, the name Isaac Holloway, as the assessor of said township for that year. They then offered in evidence the assessment of unseated lands in the said township, made by Holloway, as entered and remaining in the commissioners office. To this evidence the plaintiff objected, and the court ruled, that it was inadmissible until the defendants had shown that the assessor had taken the oath prescribed bylaw. Their opinion was excepted to by the defendants.
The defendants then offered in evidence the oath of Holloway $ as assessor* dated 10th March, 1807, which the plaintiff objected to. The defendants then called as a witness W¿ MlMillan, Esq. before whom the oath was taken, who proved* that he made a mistake in inserting the figures 1899, instead of 1799. After this evidence the court rejected the affidavit, and the defendants excepted.

Opinion:
The opinion of the Court, (Tilghman, C. J. being absent,) was delivered by,
Gibson, J.
By the bill of exceptions it appears, the only objection to the competency of the assessment was, that it did not appear by sufficient evidence, that the assessor had been sworn. I am not going to wade through the learning of the competency of acts of an officer defacto, as the cause does not require'it, and as all the cases will necessarily have to be examined in a cause of much more importance, now under advisement; but I will-take occasion to say here, that 1 have not the least doubt, that as respects third persons, the acts of an, assessor would be valid if he were in fact, never sworn. That, however, is not this case. The oath of the officer was produced, and it was objected to because it was dated of the year 1899; which on the face of the paper was evidently a mistake: but the magistrate before whom the oath was made, and who reduced it to writing, was called, and proved that the year 1799 was meant, and that the variance from the true date was purely accidental. After this, I am at a loss to" conjecture why the assessment was rejected. That the mistake in the oath filed in the office, might be corrected by parol evidence is as well established as any other principle of evidence. In the Commonwealth v. Blaine, 4 Binn. 186, the court went still further, for they suffered an impossible date, which arose from mistake in the registry of a slave, to be supplied by parol evidence against the slave on a claim of freedom, grounded on the want of a valid registry; although it was plain the slave would not receive the benefit intended to be secured to him at the expiration of his servitude, but would then have to make out the period of his birth by parol evidence, just as if there had been no provision to make it a matter of record. And, however questionable the propriety of the application of the principle to that case may seem, (I speak in this only for myself,) there cannot be the shadow of a doubt with respect to,the existence of the principle itself. The evidence of the oath of the assessor, taken with the explanation of the magistrate before whom it was made, was complete, and sufficient to authorize the introduction of the assessment, even granting, for the sake of the argument, that it were necessary to show, that the assessor had been sworn. The judgment is, therefore, reversed, and a venire de novo awarded.
Judgment reversed and a venire facias de novo awarded.