Mangle v. Stiles
Supreme Court of Pennsylvania
Error to the District Court of Philadelphia. Covenant, by Benjamin Stiles against Thomas O. Mangle, for arrears of a perpetual rent of $60, reserved in the conveyance of a lot of ground in Philadelphia, by Stiles to Mangle. Thomas J. Martin was admitted to defend as terre-tenant, and pleaded payment. The defence was grounded on the following facts. The lot was vacant at the time of the conveyance, and, therefore, furnished no adequate security for the payment of the rent.
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Error to the District Court of Philadelphia. Covenant, by Benjamin Stiles against Thomas O. Mangle, for arrears of a perpetual rent of $60, reserved in the conveyance of a lot of ground in Philadelphia, by Stiles to Mangle. Thomas J. Martin was admitted to defend as terre-tenant, and pleaded payment. The defence was grounded on the following facts. The lot was vacant at the time of the conveyance, and, therefore, furnished no adequate security for the payment of the rent. Eor this reason Mangle covenanted in the deed of conveyance to erect on the lot a three story brick dwelling-house, of…
1Opinion of the Court
The opinion of the court was delivered by
Lowrie, J.
To sustain this defence would be to allow a contract to be changed by one of the parties to it. If the house was finished, and the defendant could not get the $175, there would be some equity in his defence. He is indeed paying for *73what he has not received; but it would be very inconvenient to allow this as a set-off in such an action, for it would throw open a perpetual rent to a perpetual dispute, by an unwritten alteration of its amount, and thus make set-offs to be the cause of- strifes, instead of a way of ending them, and this must be…
2Cited by1 opinion
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