Case Name: William Sever, Appellant from a Decree of the Judge of Probate, versus Nancy Sever, Guardian, &c.
Court: Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court
Jurisdiction: Massachusetts
Decision Date: 1811-10
Citations: 7 Tyng 132
Docket Number: 
Parties: William Sever, Appellant from a Decree of the Judge of Probate, versus Nancy Sever, Guardian, &c.
Judges: 
Reporter: Massachusetts Reports
Volume: 8
Pages: 115–116

Head Matter:
William Sever, Appellant from a Decree of the Judge of Probate, versus Nancy Sever, Guardian, &c.
By an appeal from a decree of the Court of Probate, accepting the return of commissioners for the division of an estate, the return is open to every objection that could lawfully have been made to its acceptance in the court below.
Upon the application of the devisees named in the last will of the late Hon. William Sever, deceased, commissioners had been ap pointed, by warrant from the Probate Court, to divide the real estate of the said deceased among the said devisees, pursuant to the provisions of the statute of 1783, c. 36, <§> 12. The commissi oners reported a division, which was accepted by the judge of •probate. From that acceptance, the appellant entered his appeal.
Baylies, of counsel for the appellant,
stated that he was in structed by his client to say that the objections to the division made by the commissioners went only to their supposed mistakes in. estimating the relative or comparative value of the parts of the estate set to the several devisees respectively, by which the appellant believed himself to be in effect a considerable sufferer; but that no suggestion could be made against the integrity, impartiality, or purity of intention, of the commissioners.
The solicitor-general,
on the part of the respondent, objected to going into any inquiry respecting the discretion of the commissioners, when no suggestion is offered of corruption, partiality, mistake of the law, or informality in their return.

Opinion:
But the Court
observed that, by the interposition of the appeal, the return of the commissioners was opened to every objection that could lawfully have been made to it in *the court below. The partition made by them is, by the statute, made subject to alteration, as well as reversal or confirmation, in this Court.
Two of the commissioners, present in Court, were examined upon their oath, as to the method by which they estimated the value of the several parcels of the estate, and as to their present opinion of that value. Other witnesses were also examined as to the comparative value of the several parcels assigned by the commissioners to the respective devisees. Upon a full hearing of the evidence, the decree of the judge of probate was affirmed.