Case ID: mass_14/html/0093-01.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

* Thomas Dawes, Judge, &c., versus Samuel Sweet and Others.
    An action lies upon an administration bond where this Court have adjusted the administrator’s account upon an appeal, and have ordered a balance paid over.
    Debt on an administration bond. After oyer of the bond and condition, the defendants plead performance generally. The plaintiff replies a decree of this Court, as the Supreme Court of Probate, ordering a balance in the hands of the administrator to be paid over to the person entitled, and avers that the same has never been paid, and that the decree is still in force.
    Upon demurrer to this replication, Ayhvin, for the defendants,
    contended that the. condition of the bond did not apply to a decree of this Court; and he insisted that the practice had been, in cases of appeal in probate causes, after a hearing in this Court, to remit the proceedings to the judge below, for him to enter a decree, conformed to the opinion given here. He also objected to the replication, that it contained no averment of a demand and refusal.
    
      jRowe, for the plaintiff,
    argued that it was absurd to remit the proceedings when the decree in question made a final adjustment of the whole estate ; and he insisted that a decree of this Court was within the words of the condition of the administration bond. He suggested, also, that a demand had been repeatedly made on all the defendants, although, in his hasty drought of the replication, he had neglected to allege it.
   The Court

were very clear that an action on the bond will lay, to enforce a decree of this Court rendered upon an appeal. But as a demand was necessary to be averred and proved, they gave leave to the plaintiff to amend his replication, by inserting such an averment ; and to the replication thus amended the defendants might rejoin or demur, as they should be advised.