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175 Pa. 408

Lytle v. Forrest

Supreme Court of Pennsylvania

Decided May 11, 1896

Supreme Court of Pennsylvania · decided 1896-05-11

Appeal, No. 82, July T., 1895, by N. L. Hoover, one of the defendants, from order of C. P. Clear-field Co., March T., 1876, No. 612, discharging rule to open judgment. Rule to open judgment.

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Affirmed · Decided 1896-05-11

How this case has been cited

Cited by 3 later decisions — most recently June 1981

3 state decisions

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Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

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Per Curiam,

¶1For reasons given by the learned president of the court below, he was clearly right in discharging appellant’s rule to open the judgment.

¶2Applications to open judgments by default, and let the defendants into a defense, are appeals to the equitable power of the court, and Should be made with reasonable promptness. In this case appellant’s laches were inexcusable. His petition was not presented until after the death of the plaintiff and the lapse of about eleven years after he knew that judgment had been entered against him for want of an affidavit of defense. Having failed to give any satisfactory excuse for this long and unreasonable delay, he was in no position to invoke the aid of a court of equity.

¶3Decree affirmed and appeal dismissed at appellant’s costs.

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