Case ID: pa_109/html/0041-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Per Curiam.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Kirby’s Appeal.
    Advancement is a question oí intention, and the signing of a statement that a certain sum oí money due the decedent was advanced by him, is sufficient evidence of such intention to convert the indebtedness into an advancement.
    February 11th, 1885.
    Before Mercur, C. J., Gordon, Paxson, Trunkey, Sterrett and Clark, J.T. Green, J., absent.
    Appeal from the Orphans’ Court of Chester county: Of January Term, 1885, No. 38.
    Appeal of Matthias Kirby and Ann Kirby, Iris wife, in right of said Ann, from the decree of the said court, making distribution of the estate of Jacob Murray, deceased.
    Before the Auditor appointed to report distribution, the facts of the case appeared to be as follows: Jacob Murray died February 17th, 1883, intestate, leaving seven children, among whom was Ann, who intermarried with Matthias Kirby. A balance of $4,482.38 was shown in the hands of the administrators. On April 1st, 1882, decedent took from Matthias and Aim Kirby a single bill for $1,032.50, and shortly before bis death signed the following entry, written by a justice of the peace, called in for the purpose, in a small account book : — •
    April 1, 1882, my daughter Ann and her husband Matthias Kirby, Dr. to mo in the sum of $1,032.50, ten hundred and thirty-two dollars and fifty cents, which I advanced to them, for which I hold tlieir notes. Jacob Murray.
    Testimony was produced showing that Aim Kirby had admitted receiving the money at various times before the bill was given, and that she had gotten as much as her share of her father's estate. The Auditor reported distribution, treating the $1,032.50 as an advancement, and not including Ann Kirby as having received more than her share of the estate. Exceptions were filed by appellants, because the Auditor held said sum an advancement and not a debí, and because he did not award to Ann Kirby her full share.
    The court, Futuey, P. J., dismissed the exceptions and confirmed the report, whereupon complainants took this appeal, assigning for error the action of the court.
    
      R. T. Cornwell (with him I. N. Wynn), for appellants.
    "Where there is an obligation to pay there can be no advancement : Hughes’s Appeal, 7 P. E. S., 181; Miller’s Appeal, 4 Wr., 60 ; Roland v. Sclirack, 5 Casey, 125; Porter v. Allen, 3 Barr, 390; Levering v. Rittenhouse, 4 Whar., 137; Morr’s Appeal, 30 P. F. S., 427; Merkel’s Appeal, 8 Norr., 340; Kreider v. Boyer, 10 Watts, 54.
    
      Wm. M. Hayes, for the appellees.
    February 23d, 1885.
   The opinion of the court was filed

Per Curiam.

Advancement is a question of intention.. The evidence in this case to prove this was so intended is clearty sufficient. The father so declared his intention in writing, and subscribed his name to the declaration. He had an undoubted right to change a debt due from the appellant to. him, to an advancement, if it had not been so understood before. There was, however, evidence that the bodjr of the paper showing the advancement was copied from a writing previously made. This case must not be confounded with an attempt to change a gift into an advancement. Plere there had never been any gift. The written language used admits of one construction only. It establishes an intention to change the indebtedness to an advancement: Merkel’s Appeal, 8 Norris, 340. The declarations of the appellant show she understood that she had received the money as such.

Decree affirmed and appeal dismissed at the costs of the appellants.