Public-domain · open source
OpenJurist

1 Grant 437

Messick v. Ward

Supreme Court of Pennsylvania

Decided July 1, 1857

Supreme Court of Pennsylvania · decided 1857-07-01

<p>1. An award made in pursuance of a voluntary submission, and without fraud, is always final, unless the parties provide for an. appeal, or for some other mode of rehearing.</p> <p>2. Where erasures occur in a record, if they be at all allowed, the erased writing is simply to be left unread. It is not to be used as a means of construing the record itself.</p>

Decided 1857-07-01

¶1*438The opinion of the court was delivered by

Lowrie, J.

¶2— -This is a voluntary submission made in open court, with an agreement that judgment shall be entered by the prothonotary on the award. The terms of the submission seem, therefore, to exclude the right of appeal. But this was not necessary ; for no appeal is given by law in such a case. On a voluntary submission, an award made in pursuance of it, and without fraud is always final, unless the parties provide for an appeal, or for some other mode-of re-hearing.

¶3But it is supposed that the contrary intention^ appears here, because the words “without exception or appeal,” were originally in the submission as written, and were erased at the time the submission was agreed to, and made a rule of court. We cannot possibly attribute so much importance to an erasure. Usually that which is erased is not to be read, but this wrnuld be to make it the means of announcing a most important part of the agreement. An erasure of one agreement cannot be-equivalent to the expression of a contrary agreement. The erasure left the parties without agreement on the subject, and then the rules of law must stand as their guide in relation to it.

¶4And besides, it would be most dangerous to establish a rule that any unexpressed intention is to be inferred from an erasure. We have enough to do to construe what is written in plain words, without requiring us to interpret erasures. There ought to be no such thing in' a record, but if they be at all allowed, we must simply leave the erased writing unread.

¶5Judgment affirmed.

/1/grant/437 · .json · Public domain