Case ID: port_3/html/0247-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Hitchcock, J.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

HOUPT versus Adm’rs of SHIELDS.
    QUESTION IN THIS CASE.
    
      The effect of the act of 1806, (exempting the representative of an estate from suit, within six months after letters,) on the statute of limitations.
    
    
      1. In an action against an administrator, on a claim against the estate of his intestate, the period elapsing, between the time of grant of letters, and'the expiration of the six months, during which he may not bo sued; are not to be embraced within the time relied on, to sustain a plea of the statute of limitations.
    This was an action of assumpsit, in Washington Circuit Court, bj the plaintiff in error, to recover of the administrators of Shields, for work and labor, done and performed for the intestate.
    The pleas were non-assumpsit and the statute of limitations. Issue was taken, on the first plea, and to the last, a replication, that the cause of action had accrued within three years, six months and nineteen days, next preceding the issuance of the writ.
    It appeared, that Shields died on the 25t)i April, 1830; and, that letters issued to the defendants, on the 15th May, 1830. The Court below sustained a demurrer to this replication, and a judgment was rendered for the defendants — from which Houpt prosecuted his writ of error to this Court.
    The cause was argued by Porter, for the plaintiff in error, and by Mr. Goldthwaite, for the defendants-
    
      For the plaintiff, it was contended, that the replication was good, because the plaintiff could not bring his action, until there were representatives of the estate ; and, as nineteen days had elapsed before the grant of letters; and, as, during the ensuing six months, the administrators were exempt from suit, under the statute of 1806 — these periods could not be embraced within the time relied on, as a bar, under the statute of limitations.—Douglass vs. Forrest, 4 Bing. 686; 1 M. & P. 663; Hutchison, Ex’or vs. Tolls, 2 Porter, 44. That, no fault was in the plaintiff, in as much as there was no person to sue. — Jolife vs. Pitt, 2 Vern. 694; Webster vs. Webster, 10 Ves. 93.
   Hitchcock, J.

This case is reversed and remanded, it being considered by the Court to come within the principles of the decision of this Court, in the case of Hutchison, Ex’or vs. Tolls. 
      
      2Porter44