Case ID: whart_6/html/0191-01.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

[Philadelphia,
    February 1, 1841,]
    FUCHS’S CASE.
    APPEAL.
    An appeal does not lie from a decree of a Court of Common Pleas upon the settlement of® the accounts of a committee of a lunatic.
    This was an appeal from a decree of the Court of Common Pleas of Northampton County in the matter of the accounts of John Fuchs, committee of the estate of Conrad Fuchs, a lunatic.
    In 1822, John Fuchs and Adam Sandt were appointed the committee of the lunatic.
    On the 18th of March, 1837, John FucBs filed an account in the Court of Common Pleas, which was referred to auditors, who made a report on the 19th of April, 1839. Exceptions were filed by the committee to this account; and on the 23d of August, 1839, the Court of Common Pleas made a decree amending the account ' reported by the auditors, and directing the prothonotary to state an account accordingly.
    From this decree an appeal was taken.
    Mr. Ihrie, for the committee,
    now moved to dismiss the appeal on the ground that this court had no jurisdiction.
    Mr. Maxwell and Mr. Porter, contra.
   Per Curiam.

An appeal not expressly or necessarily given, cannot be entei’tained; and certainly none is expressly given in this instance, for the first section of the act of the 16th of May, 1836, has regard to removals only by common law process for correction of errors and irregularities, and not to removals by an appeal, which lays open the cause to revision on the merits, and which has been borrowed from -the civil law. It is argued, however, that as the Common Pleas is put upon a footing in regard to a lunatic’s committee, with the Orphans’ Court in regard to a guardian, there is consequently the same appeal from its judgment or decree in regard to their accounts. But the 25th paragraph of the 23d section of the act of the 13th of April, 1836, from which the inference is attempted,‘ has regard expressly to no more than the “ control, removal, dismissal, and discharge” of such committees, and not to the settlement of their accounts. It is clear, therefore, that the decree of the Common Pleas is conclusive.

Appeal quashed.