Case ID: nys_96/html/1101-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "HOOKER, J.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

(110 App. Div. 76)
    In re STADTMULLER et al. In re LEE’S ESTATE.
    (Supreme Court, Appellate Division, Second Department.
    December 29, 1905.)
    1. Husband and Wife—Wife’s Separate Estate—Liabilities—Funeral Ex-
    penses Paid by Husband.
    The separate estate of a wife is liable for her funeral expenses to the estate of her husband, who died after her, though he assumed and paid them without expectation of reimbursement from her estate; he neither having done any positive act indicating an intent to make a gift of the money to her estate, not having actually released such es.tate, and he having died before his claim against her estate was barred.
    [Ed. Note.—For cases in point, see vol. 26, Cent. Dig. Husband and Wife, § 594.]
    2. Same—Doctor’s Bills Paid by Husband.
    In the absence of special agreement or provision, the separate estate of a deceased wife is not liable for her doctor’s bills to the estate of her husband, who died after her, having paid such bills; they being for necessaries supplied her while living with him, for which he is liable.
    [Ed. Note.—For cases in point, see vol. 26, Cent. Dig. Husband and Wife, § 593.]
    Appeal from Surrogate’s Court, Orange County,
    In the matter of the judicial settlement of -the account of Clara Stadtmuller and another, executrix and executor of Catherine T. Lee, deceased. From a decree rejecting claims of Flora Á. Stegman, admimstratrix with the will annexed of George Lee, deceased, she appeals.
    Modified.
    Argued before HIRSCHBERG, P. J., and WOODWARD, HOOKER, RICH, and MILLER, JJ.
    Sydney A. Syme, for appellant.
    Frank Lybolt, for respondents.
   HOOKER, J.

This is an appeal from a decree made by the surrogate of Orange county on the judicial settlement of the account of the executors of the last will and testament of Catherine T. Lee, deceased, rejecting certain claims against her estate lodged by the administratrix with the will annexed, etc., of George Lee, deceased. There is little dispute as to the facts. George Lee and Catherine T. Lee were husband and wife, and resided together. On the 29th day of July, 1902, the wife died, and the husband, who was then ill, followed her three weeks later. Both left estates. The will of the wife directed that all her just debts and funeral expenses be paid. A short time after the death of his wife Mr. Lee sent for several parties who had claims and requested them to present their bills. They were paid on the 15th of August, 1902. George Lee paid the physician who attended his wife "during her last -illness the sum of $248.50, one Maxiner for flowers furnished at her funeral $80.50, and one Collier, an undertaker who had charge of her funeral, $281. The administratrix with the will annexed, etc., of George Lee, claims to recover these sums from the estate of his wife. The surrogate, however, rejected these claims, and the administratrix of the husband’s estate appeals from the decree.

That the items paid Collier and Maxiner are legitimate funeral expenses cannot be doubted. In McCue v. Garvey, 14 Hun, 562, there were allowed, in addition to the undertaker’s bill, disbursements for a wake and a priest. A reasonable charge for tombstone is part of funeral expense (section 2749, Code Civ. Proc ; Matter of Shipman, 82 Hun, 108, 116, 31 N. Y. Supp. 571), as are carriages for the funeral; flowers, music, and other incidental expenses. Matter of Ogden, 41 Misc. Rep. 158, 83 N. Y. Supp. 977.

It is equally clear that, where the wife leaves a separate estate, although a surviving husband is under a legal obligation to bury the body of his wife, her estate is liable to the charge. It has been held that, where expenditures of this sort have actually been made by the husband, his wife’s separate estate, if she had one, should reimburse him, Patterson v. Patterson, 59 N. Y. 574, 17 Am. Rep. 384 ; McCue v. Garvey, supra; Freeman v. Coit, 27 Hun, 447 ; Watkins v. Brown, 89 App. Div. 193, 85 N. Y. Supp. 820. The point made by the respondents that because George Lee assumed .these' claims without the expectation of being reimbursed from the estate of his deceased wife can have no force. Unless he did some positive act indicative of an intent to make a gift of such moneysi to the estate, or actually released the wife’s estate, no legal impediment existed to prevent his claiming reimbursement in case, for one reason or another, he, changed his mind about filing a claim. He died before his claim against his wife’s estate was barred, arid his administratrix is simply seeking to enforce a right which accrued to him and which he never alienated.

The decree, in so far as it rejected the claim of the administratrix with the will annexed, etc., of George Lee, deceased, for the amount of the physician’s bill paid by Lee before his death, is, however, right. So long as the wife lived with her husband, he, and he alone, was liable to the physician as for necessaries supplied to the wife, in the absence of agreement between the wife and the physician that credit should be extended to her. No such agreement was shown to exist. Under such circumstances neither the wife nor her estate would have been liable, in the absence of special direction in her will that such payment be made. This distinction between the physician’s charge and the funeral expenses, was the subject of consideration in Freeman v. Coit, supra, where the same conclusion was reached.

The decree should be modified by allowing the claim for the amounts paid the florist Maxiner and the undertaker Collier, and, as so modified, it should be affirmed, without costs to either party. All concur.