Case ID: misc_2/html/0291-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Coffin, S.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

In re Estate of Govan, Deceased.
    (Surrogate's Court—Westchester County,
    February, 1893.)
    The amount of the penalty of an administrator’s bond is fixed not with regard to the debts the intestate owed, but the value of his personal estate.
    The deceased died in the city of Hartford, in the state of Connecticut, leaving a last will and testament, which was there duly proved in- the Prohate Court, and Henry F. Smith and James H. Groom qualified as executors. The testator left some assets in the county of Westchester, and the executors applied for and obtained ancillary letters from the surrogate of said county. It was shown, by the petition therefor, that the value of the assets so left in said county did not exceed $100, and that he owed a debt of sixty dollars to a person in this state. Before such letters were issued, said executors filed the usual bond in the penalty of $130. Harriet Govan, of the city of Yonkers, in said county, now presents a petition in which she represents herself to be a creditor of the deceased in the sum of $240 and prays that said executors may be required to give additional sureties in a penalty of $600, or that their letters may he revoked. The executors file an answer, in which they deny the alleged indebtedness.
    
      I. J. JBeaudrias, for petitioner.
    
      F. F. Fonoghue, for executors.
   Coffin, S.

This court cannot try the question of the alleged indebtedness, but must regard the claim of the petitioner, although disputed, as sufficient to entitle her to make an application of this character, nevertheless, the prayer of her petition must be denied. She asks for a bond in a penalty of $600, the admitted debt being sixty dollars, and her claim $240, making $300, the half of the proposed penalty. She does not claim that the value of the assets in this state exceeds $100, which is the amount stated in the petition for the letters. How, by section 2699 of the Code, before such letters can be issued, the persons to whom they are awarded, must qualify as prescribed in section 2667, to wit, by giving a bond in a penalty not less than twice the value of the personal estate of the deceased, except that the penalty of the bond may, in the discretion of the surrogate be in such a sum, not exceeding-twice the amount which appears to be due from the decedent tc residents of the state. This discretionary power was exercised in this case. It would seem that unless the surrogate exercise-this discretion the penalty of the bond should be twice the amount of the value of the assets in this state, and then, in this case, the penal sum would have been $200. It would be absurd to hold that the legislature intended that where the amount of the assets was only $100, and the amount of the debts $5,000, the executors should give a bond in the penal sum of $10,000. The amount of the penalty of an administrator’s bond is fixed, not with regard to the debts the intestate owed, but the value of his personal estate. The only object of the bond here, is to secure the creditors to the extent of the value of the assets.

The prayer of the petition is, therefore, denied, with ten dollars costs of the motion.