Case Name: Moore and Others against Moore
Court: Kentucky Court of Appeals
Jurisdiction: Kentucky
Decision Date: 1837-10-10
Citations: 5 Dana 464
Docket Number: 
Parties: Moore and Others against Moore.
Judges: 
Reporter: Kentucky Reports
Volume: 35
Pages: 464–465

Head Matter:
Moore and Others against Moore.
Chancery.
[Mr. J. T. Morehead for plaintiff: no appearance for defendant.]
From the Circuit Court for Christian County.
October 10.
Executors purchasing out a dower interest in property devised, maybe considered as holding it in trust for the devisees and creditors: who, if they will, may take the executors’ place, in that respect; and the ex’ors, upon being reimbursed for the sum expended in the purchase,may be required to account for the property, free of the incumbrance.
Assurances given by executors to their co-defendants to a bill for dower, that the bequest to them could not be affected by the claim, is a sufficient excuse for their failure to answer in due time; so that, upon finding that their interests would be affected, and that, after the bill had been taken for confessed, the case referred to a com’r whose report had been received, &c., the executors had bought the dower interest—they may still, before a final decree, be permitted to file their answer, and cross bill for the benefit of the executors’ purchase &c.

Opinion:
Chief Justice Robertson
delivered the Opinion of the Court.
This writ of error is brought to reverse a decree for dower in land and slaves, and for distribution of personalty, in favor of a widow, who had, within the time and in the mode prescribed,by law, renounced the benefit of a provision made for her by her deceased husband's will.
And waiving other questions, as not necessary to be decided, we shall, in revising the decree, consider one question only; and that is, whether the Circuit Court erred in refusing to permit some of the defendants in that court, against whom the bill had been taken for confessed, to file answers in the nature of cross bills, after an interlocutory decree had been rendered, and the commissioner's report had been returned to court, in obedience to that decree.
It appears, from those answers and the affidavits accompanying them, that the respondents had not sooner answered because, as they allege, they had been informed by the executors, who were co-defendants with themselves and others, that, as they (the respondents) were devisees of slaves, their interests in those slaves could not be affected by the widow's claim to dower; and that, since the rendering of the interlocutory decree, the executors had purchased the widow's interest therein, which, as the answers insist, should thereby be deemed as being bought for the benefit of the testator's children and creditors.
It appears also, from the decree, as finally rendered, after the rejection of the said answers, that some of the slaves devised to some of those respondents, were allotted to the widow as a part of her dower.
Now, we are of the opinion: First, That, if the ex ecutors as charged, had purchased the widow's interest, they should be considered as holding it, not for their own personal benefit, but in trust for the devisees and creditors of their testator; and that they are entitled to charge the estate of the testator only so much as they gave for that interest.
Upon a motion to file an answer, its contents must be taken as true.
And, second, that the affidavits exhibited reasons sufficient to authorize the filing of the answers and cross bills at the time they were offered, before the final hearing of the case.
If the rejected answers be true—as they must now be considered as being—the final decree is for the exclusive and personal benefit of the executors, who, standing, as they did, in the relation of trustees, may be required to hold, as trustees, the purchased right to the widow's incumbrance on their testator's estate, and the more especially as the contract was made during the pendency of the suit, by the widow against themselves and others representing that estate. The devisees should not be subjected to the partition if they will contribute to the payment of the sum given by the executors for the widow's interest. And it would seem, from the rejected answers, that the parties offering them are willing to make just contribution.
And it does not appear, nor should it be presumed, that the rejected answers in the nature of cross bills setting up that purchase, and claiming the benefit of it, could have been offered at any time earlier than that at which they were tendered in court.
It seems to us, therefore, that the widow and executors should have been required to answer those cross bills.
Wherefore, the decree of the Circuit Court is reversed, and the cause remanded, with instructions to permit the rejected answers and cross bills to be filed, and amended if proposed.