Case ID: nys_115/html/0283-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "SCOTT, J.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

In re GRANT.
    (Supreme Court, Appellate Division, First Department.
    March 5, 1909.)
    Costs (§ 281)—Payment and Remedies fob Collection—Contempt.
    The surrogate has no authority to enforce payment of costs by contempt proceedings.
    [Ed. Note.—For other cases, see Costs, Cent. Dig. § 1072; Dec. Dig. § 281.*]
    Appeal from Surrogate’s Court, New York County.
    In the matter "of the judicial settlement of the account of Frederic Grant, as temporary administrator of the estate of James Grant, deceased. From an order of the Surrogate’s Court, punishing Frederic Grant, temporary administrator, for contempt, he appeals. Reversed.
    Argued before INGRAHAM, McLAUGHLIN, HOUGHTON, CLARKE, and SCOTT, JJ.
    Charles E. Souther, for appellant.
    Arthur L. Marvin, for respondent.
    
      
      For other cases see same topic & § number in Dec. & Am. Digs. 1907 to date. & Rep'r Indexes
    
   SCOTT, J.

This is an appeal by Frederic Grant, the temporary administrator of James Grant, deceased, from an order of the surrogate punishing him, as for a contempt, for his failure to pay costs awarded to a special guardian and to certain other parties who appeared as objectors to an account filed by appellant. It clearly appears that appellant has no funds of the estate in his hands wherewith to pay the costs, and the proceeding which culminated in the order appealed from was in effect one to compel him to pay such costs personally. It was held in Matter of Humfreville, 154 N. Y. 115, 47 N. E. 1086, that the surrogate had no authority to enforce the payment of costs by contempt proceedings.

The order appealed from must therefore be reversed, with $10 costs and disbursements, and the motion to punish the appellant for contempt denied. All concur.