Case ID: va_42/html/0119-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "By the court.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

*Bourne’s Ex’or v. Mechan, Adm’r.
    December, 1844,
    Richmond.
    (Absent Cabell, P.)
    Executors—Legacies—Interest—Case at Bar.—An executor, who is the residuary legatee, is bound to pay interest on legacies left by his testator, though no demand has been made for them for fourteen years; though during all that time the legatees have been dead, and there has been no administration on their estate; and though the executor did not know, and had no means of knowing, whether they were alive or dead; or where they resided in their lifetime.
    John Bourne died in the year 1813, having first made his will, which was duly admitted to record in the county court of Bouisa. By his will he gave to his sister Molly Saunders, and his niece Caty Chewning, each, one fourth of whatever moneys might be recovered of Jesse Davenport. And after providing that the land on which he lived and some personal property, particularly specified, should be appropriated to the support of his old negro woman Betty, during her life; he directs that after her death this property shall be sold at the discretion of his executor; and the moneys arising therefrom, together with the residuary part of his estate, he gives to Patrick Michie, whom he appoints his executor, for the purpose of paying his debts, and carrying the provisions of his will into effect.
    Michie qualified as executor, and in 1815 he recovered of Jesse Davenport the sum of ^139. 2. 10. : both the-legatees Molly Saunders and Caty Chewning having survived their husbands; and died previous to that time. In 1834 the appellee Meehan qualified as their administrator, in the county court of Middlesex; and in 1835 he brought this suit in the circuit superior court of law and chancery for the countj' of Louisa, against the executor Michie, to recover these legacies.
    *Michie in his answer admitted the bequests, and that he had by a compromise with Davenport, made in 1815, received the sum'above mentioned in three equal annual payments; but that at the time this money was paid, he did not know where the legatees lived, if alive at all; indeed he knew nothing of them, never having heard of them, except as they were mentioned in his testator’s will; and that he was possessed of no means by which he could ascertain their residence. He farther averred that there was no representative of either of them, or of either of their husbands, known to him prior to the application made to him by the present administrator; nor did he know any person to whom he could legally pay these legacies: and that he had offered to pajr the principal money, which was refused.
    Although it appeared that there had been an administrator upon Catharine Chewning’s estate in 1816, there was no evidence that there ever had been an application to the executor for the payment of either of the legacies; or that he knew, or had ever heard of the legatees except by the will.
    The cause coming on to be heard in September 1835, the court decreed that the executor should pay to the plaintiff, as the administrator of each of the legatees, the one fourth of the sum of ^139. 2. 10., with interest thereon from the 15th of May 1815, till paid. From which decree, the executor obtained an appeal to this court.
    The cause was argued in this court by C. & G. N. Johnson for the appellant, and Griswold & Claiborne for the appellee.
    On the question whether interest should have been allowed on the legacies, the counsel for the appellant referred to the cases of M’Call v. Turner, 1 Call 133; Cavendish v. Fleming, 3 Munf. 198; Johnson v. Mitchell, 1 Rand. 209, and Ambler v. Macon, 4 Call 606.
    *The counsel for the appellee referred to Granberry v. Granberty, 1 Wash. 246; Jones v. Williams, 2 Call 102; Churchill v. Lady Speake, 1 Vernon 251, and the cases cited in Tate’s Dig. p. 517.
    
      
      Executors—Legacies—Interest.—On this subject, see the principal case cited in foot-note to Anderson v. Burwell, 6 Gratt. 405; Lyon v. Magagnos, 7 Gratt. 379; Sharpe v. Rockwood, 78 Va. 85. See mono-graphic note on “Executors and Administrators” appended to Rosser v. Depriest, 5 Gratt. 6,
    
   By the court.

Affirm the decree.