McKowen v. McDonald
Supreme Court of Pennsylvania
Error to the District Court of Allegheny county. This was an action of ejectment by John B. McDonald and others, claiming under John McKowen, Sr., deceased, against John McKowen, a son of deceased, for a tract of land in Upper St. Clair township. On the trial it was admitted that John McKowen the elder had been the owner of the land in controversy, that he died January 8th 1855, that the plaintiffs were among his heirs at law, and that the defendant was in possession.
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Error to the District Court of Allegheny county. This was an action of ejectment by John B. McDonald and others, claiming under John McKowen, Sr., deceased, against John McKowen, a son of deceased, for a tract of land in Upper St. Clair township. On the trial it was admitted that John McKowen the elder had been the owner of the land in controversy, that he died January 8th 1855, that the plaintiffs were among his heirs at law, and that the defendant was in possession. This was the plaintiffs’ case. The defendant claimed under a parol title from his father, and gave in evidence the testimony…
1Opinion of the Court
The opinion of the court was delivered, by
Woodward, J.
This was not a suitable case for a demurrer to evidence. The title of the defendant below, which rested in parol, was made out by proof of the declarations of his father, an old man who died in 1855, at eighty-two years of age. These declarations ran through the last six or seven years of the old man’s life, and imported that he had induced his son John to remove from Allegheny City to the farm in question, and to improve it, by a promise that it would be given him as his share of the father’s estate. No witness described a bargain between…
2Cited by16 opinions
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- Commonwealth v. ZollerSupreme Court of Pennsylvania · 1985
- Vernon D. Cox & Co., Inc. v. GilesSuperior Court of Pennsylvania · 1979
- Commonwealth v. WilliamsSuperior Court of Pennsylvania · 1919
- Rader v. KeiperSupreme Court of Pennsylvania · 1926
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