Lagorio

This is an action to quiet title to the lands described in the complaint. The defendants answered, denying plaintiffs’ ownership and alleging an equitable title in themselves by virtue of a written contract of sale and purchase between plaintiffs and defendants. The action was commenced October 18, 1926, and tried by the court March 3, 1927. Judgment went for plaintiffs and the defendants appeal.

At the trial plaintiffs offered and the court received in evidence conveyances vesting title to the lands in controversy in them. They thereupon rested their ease. Over the objection of plaintiffs counsel for defendants then offered and the court received in evidence a letter dated July 16, 1924, written by the plaintiff Y. Lagorio to one Theodore Gier in which the writer stated that the defendant Thomas E. Yerxa, the purchaser under the contract of sale of the lands described in the complaint, was not in default under the terms of said contract. With the reception in evidence of this letter, defendants closed their case. In rebuttal Girard N. Richardson testified, without objection, that no payments had been made under the contract since June, 1926, and that the payments provided for…