Case ID: mass_8/html/0208-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "\n      Per Curiam.\n    ", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Jonathan Brooks versus Ephraim Cook and James Barrett, his Trustee.
    An administrator cannot be holden as the trustee of a creditor of the estate of his intestate.
    The question in this case was, whether Barrett was by law liable to be adjudged the trustee of the defendant. Concerning which question the facts were, that Barrett had, at the time of the service of the writ upon him, no goods, effects, or credits of Cook in his possession, excepting as he, Barrett, was administrator of the goods and estate of Peter Barrett, deceased; that, previous to the death of the said Peter, the defendant Cook had commenced a suit against him, to recover the value of certain hides, which suit was pending at the time of the trustee’s answer ; and that the estate of the said Peter Barrett was insolvent.
    * Hoare,
    
    for the trustee, argued that an administrator, inasmuch as he derived his authority from the law, is like a public officer, concerning whom this Court has repeatedly decided that he cannot be holden as trustee of one who has claims upon him in his official capacity.  One inconvenience is peculiar to the case of an administrator of an insolvent estate. While he is under attachment as the trustee of a creditor of the estate, the final adjustment and distribution of the estate is delayed, to the injury of all the other creditors. The funds in the hands of an administrator are frequently the proceeds of real estate sold by him, under a license of court. Surely these proceeds cannot be considered as goods, effects, and credits intrusted to and deposited in the hands of the administrator by a creditor of the estate.
    
      Dana, for the plaintiff,
    contended that an administrator was truly -the debtor of a creditor to his intestate, and as such was liable to be holden by this process. The inconvenience alluded to as arising in the probate office, is not so great as the depriving a plaintiff of the remedy which the law has given him; nor is it greater than the cace of one who, by the terms of his contract, is entitled to a long credit. In that case the process is continued until the time of payment arrives. So here the proceedings may be stayed until Cook's action is decided, and his dividend ordered by the judge of probate. This will operate a much less inconvenience, than by discharging the trustee in this case, to deprive the plaintiff of a remedy against his debtor’s effects and credits in the hands of an administrator.
    
      
      
        Wilder vs. Bailey, 3 Mass. Rep. 289. — Chealy vs. Brewer, 7 Mass. Rep. 25).
    
   Per Curiam.

No person deriving his authority from the law, and obliged to e°xecute it according to the rules of law, can be holden by process of this kind. We have determined this in the case of public officers, and the reason of those decisions applies with equal force to the case of an administrator. Let the trustee be discharged.