Case ID: sc-eq_31/html/0356-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Wardlaw, Ch.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

W. W. Pettus and others vs. S. P. Sutton and others.
    
      Interest — Administration—Account—Trustees.
    The whole estate consisted of the sale bill, which fell due in December, one year from its date. The administrators having ascertained that the debts were very inconsiderable, charged themselves early in the next year with the amount of the sale bill, deducting therefrom their expenditures. Held, that the administrators were not exempt from liability for interest for the year in which they charged themselves with the amount of the sale bill.
    The rule exempting trustees from liability for interest until the end of the year is not absolute, but dependent on the circumstances of the cases.
    BEFORE DARG-AN, CH, AT YORK,
    JUNE, 1858.
    This was an appeal from the decree of the Ordinary on the accounts of the defendants, administrators of William Pettus. The only evidence against the defendants was (l,) the sale bill, bearing date the 27th December, 1855, due, with interest from date, on the 27th December, 1856; (2,) the return of the defendants, made on the 18th February, 1857, in which they charged themselves with the amount of the sale bill, and the interest thereon, until it fell due, in all, $16,179 94, and then deducted their expenditures up to that time, including their commissions, $515 60, leaving a balance of $15,664 34; and (3,) their second return of further expenditures and commissions on paying the whole amount, which deducted from the amount of the first return, without interest, left a balance in their hands of $15,153 24.
    The Ordinary’s decree was made on the 22d February, 1858. It charged thé defendants with the balance in their hands of $15,153 24, with interest thereon from the 27th December, 1857, thus exempting them from liability for interest for one year from the day the sale bill fell due.
    
      His Honor, Chancellor Dargan, held that the defendants were liable for the interest, and so modified the decree as to charge them with interest from the 1st of January, 1857.
    The defendants appealed.
    Clawson, for appellants.
    
      Williams, Beatty, contra.
   The opinion of the Court was delivered by

Wardlaw, Ch.

I greatly regret that in these cases unanimity in the Court has not been attained. The dissent of the most experienced member of the Court disturbs me. My opinion, however, is firmly in concurrence with the circuit decree. It never was an absolute rule in the Court to allow trustees a full year to hold funds exempt from interest. The practice has been flexible, dependent on the circumstances of the cases presented. This is well explained in the case of Baker vs. Lafitte, 4 Rich. Eq. 392.

In the present instance, the administrators had more than a year to ascertain the condition of the estate; and finding that the intestate owed no considerable debts, they charged themselves early in the following year with the total of the sale bill. Trustees are not allowed to make profit in the execution of trusts; and yet should be saved, to a proper extent, from the moth of interest.

I do not perceive in this case any reason, from the condition of the estate, to exempt the administrators from payment of interest for a year after the sale bill fell due.

It is ordered and decreed that the appeal be dismissed, and the circuit decree be affirmed.

Dunkin, Ch., concurred.

Decree affirmed.