Church v. Wells's Executors
Supreme Court of Pennsylvania
ERROR to tbe District Court, Philadelphia. Wells’s executor claimed against the church the amount of a certificate of loan of $950 with interest, issued under the seal of the church, and dated 27th July, 1838. This not being denied, the defence was placed on a plea of set-off, under which the defendants claimed pew rent from March, 1848, after the death of the plaintiff’s testator, up to the time of the trial, on one of the pews in the church, granted to him by the trustees,…
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ERROR to tbe District Court, Philadelphia. Wells’s executor claimed against the church the amount of a certificate of loan of $950 with interest, issued under the seal of the church, and dated 27th July, 1838. This not being denied, the defence was placed on a plea of set-off, under which the defendants claimed pew rent from March, 1848, after the death of the plaintiff’s testator, up to the time of the trial, on one of the pews in the church, granted to him by the trustees, “ subject to a yearly rent-charge of $45.” It appeared that, after the testator’s death, in 1842, his family continued…
1Opinion of the Court
The opinion of the Court was, delivered by
LoWRIE,(J.
In England the right to a pew in a church is obtained by a faculty or grant from the ordinary, or by allotment by the minister or churchwardens, or by prescription. In the last case the right is appurtenant to a dwelling-house, and in the others it is merely personal, and not transferable or descendible. Pew rights here depend upon no such principles, and this, without considering the relation of the English Church to the state, shows that the English law relating to pews can have no general application here.
Religious congregations here are…
2Cited by3 opinions
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- Zernosky v. KluchinskySupreme Court of Pennsylvania · 1923
- Restland Memorial Parks, Inc.United States Bankruptcy Court, W.D. Pennsylvania · 2021