Case ID: mass_4/html/0444-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "\n      The Court\n    ", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

* Andrew Whitney versus Charles Whitman.
    One non compos mentis defends m an action by his guardian, and dies pending the suit; the guardian can no longer appear in the defence, but the executor or administrator of the non compos, if the cause of action survives against him, must defend.
    When this action was commenced, the defendant was a person non compos mentis, and he defended by Charles Whitman, Jun., who had been duly appointed his guardian. The plaintiff obtained a verdict in the court below, and, from the judgment on that verdict, the defendant, by his guardian, appealed. Pending the appeal, the original defendant died, and administration of his estate was committed to Charles Whitman, who had been the guardian, and who now comes into Court, and moves that he may defend the suit in his capacity of administrator of the estate of the original defendant.
   The Court

observed that, by the death of the ward, the authority of the guardian to defend was extinguished; that the action was not against the guardian, but against the ward; and that, on his death, it might, as in other cases of personal actions, where the cause of action survived, be defended by the executor or administrator. The motion was granted.