Case Name: Matter of the Estate of Matilda McNally, Deceased
Court: New York Surrogate's Court
Jurisdiction: New York
Decision Date: 1910-05
Citations: 68 Misc. 8
Docket Number: 
Parties: Matter of the Estate of Matilda McNally, Deceased.
Judges: 
Reporter: New York Miscellaneous Reports
Volume: 68
Pages: 8–9

Head Matter:
Matter of the Estate of Matilda McNally, Deceased.
(Surrogate’s Court, Kings County,
May, 1910.)
Executors and administrators — Accounting and settlement — Right to require accounting, time for account, etc.— Time for accounting — Laches or delay.
Where distributees of an estate and the deceased administrator were of the same family, in a proceeding for the settlement of the latter’s account by his personal representatives the former are not to be held guilty of laches merely because the administrator remained living in office for twenty years after the time wliep be might haye ¡bee?1 required to account?
Proceeding upon the account of administrators.
Goldie & Gumm, for administratrix de bonis non of Matilda McNally, deceased.
Robert O’Byrne, for Ellen T. McNally, executrix of John J. McNally, deceased, administrator of Matilda McNally, deceased.

Opinion:
Ketcham, S.
The account must be charged with $904.34, which came into the hands of the administrator of the original estate on November 8, 1888, with interest thereon at the rate of four per cent.
No credits against this sum can be found.
There is no defense to the petitioner's claim for an accounting, either by reason of the Statute of Limitations (Matter of Ashheim, 111 App. Div. 176; 185 N. Y. 609), or the lapse of time. Treadwell v. Clark, 190 N. Y. 51, 60.
The deceased administrator remained alive and in office for twenty years after the time when he might have been required to account; but the distributees were of his own family, and there is no ground for a finding that there was on their part any unreasonable delay in asserting their right to an accounting. Indeed, whether the equitable doctrine of laches, distinct from the Statute of Limitations, exists or not, it is hard to imagine that the distributees of an estate can have waived their remedies by delay for a period during which the law has continued to assure them that no limitation upon their right could begin to run until the administrator had openly repudiated his trust.
The account will be settled accordingly.
Decreed accordingly.