Case ID: scl_23/html/0335-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "O’Neall, J.,", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

John L. M’Laurin vs. Neill Thompson; Hugh M’Coll vs. Same.
    Where an administrator has left the State, and the Ordinary grants letters of administration to another, this, without any other formality, is a sufficient judgment of revocation of the authority of the' first.
    BEFORE O’NEALL, J„ AT MARLBOROUGH, FALL TERM, 1837.
    These two cases thus entitled, were appeals from the decision of William Easterling, late Ordinary of Marlborough district, on the accounts of Colin M’Coll, administrator of Duncan M’Coll, deceased. Colin M’Ooll was dead, and administration on his estate had been committed to M’Bryde, who removed from the State. To enable these plaintiffs to obtain an account of Colin M’Coll’s’administration of Duncan M’Coll’s estate, and to make the defendant, his surety, liable, they procured one Hugh L. M’Intyre to administer on Colin M’Coll’s estate, and against him as administrator, the accounts were made up. The defendant, as the surety of Colin M’Coll, attended the accounting before the Ordinary, and amongst other objections urged that administration upon Colin’s estate had been already granted to M’Bryde, who was still alive; that the administration granted to MTntyre was void, and hence the administrator of Colin M’Coll not being before the Ordinary, that the account could not be taken. The Ordinary overruled this, as well as the other objections made, audited the accounts, and pronounced a decree for a considerable sum of money. The defendant appealed, on the ground already stated, and several others.
    The presiding Judge considered the single objection, that administration having been once granted and not revoked, and the administrator being still alive, though residing in another State, administration could not be again granted by the Ordinary. In his report of the case, his.Honor expressed his views of the law upon this subject, in the following manner:
    “In the case Ex parte Galluchat, 1 Hill, Ch. R. 150, this point was noticed and reserved. I was then satisfied that the law of this State conferred no snob power on tbe Ordinary. In England there is an express provision by the statute 38 Gr. 3, c. 87, authorizing the Ordinary to appoint an administrator where the executor had made probate and gone without the realm. There is no such provision in this State. It will be seen on looking into our statute law, that the only cases in which the Ordinary is authorized to grant administration, is where it is revoked, or where the administrator dies intestate. At common law he probably possessed no such powers. In the case of removal from the State, the citizen forfeits none of his rights; and hence his administration cannot be considered as ended. The parties entitled to an account against him, are not without a remedy, as they may proceed in equity, and to that bill they may make the surety a party, and obtain a decree against both. See Odie vs. Oble, decided in Columbia about the year 1829, and McBee vs. --, also decided in Columbia, in 1833. Eor these reasons I thought the objection fatal, and reversed the Ordinary’s decree.”
    From this decision the plaintiffs appealed, and moved to reverse the same, on the ground that the removal of the administrator from the State was an abandonment of his office, and the Ordinary thereupon had authority to appoint another, without revoking the letters of administration granted to the first.
    Dudley, for motion.
    
      M’Queen, contra.
    The case was argued in the Court of Appeals, at December Term, 1837, and postponed for consideration until the present Term.
   O’Neall, J.,

delivered the opinion of the Court.

In these cases, as upon the circuit, I still think that the removal of the administrator from the State, does not of itself justify the Ordinary in revoking his letters of administration. But in this case, the Ordinary had granted administration anew to another. This seems to be equivalent to a judgment of revocation; and as the administrator M’Bryde is not contesting this grant of administration, we must, I think now, regard it as a revocation. In Grimke’s Law of Executors, 197, it is said that “ an administration may be repealed without any sentence of revocation, to be given in any spiritual court or otherwise, as by granting a new administration.” This is a direct authority on the very point, and to it, after mature deliberation, I most cheerfully yield my circuit opinion.

The motion to reverse the decision below is granted, and the cases are remanded to the Circuit Court, to be further heard and adjudged on the appeal from the Ordinary.