Case Name: HAND v. KELLY, AS ADMR., ETC.
Court: Supreme Court of South Carolina
Jurisdiction: South Carolina
Decision Date: 1915-09-28
Citations: 102 S.C. 151
Docket Number: 9198
Parties: HAND v. KELLY, AS ADMR., ETC.
Judges: Messrs. Justices Hydrick and Watts concur in the opinion announced bjr Mr. Justice Gage.
Reporter: South Carolina Reports
Volume: 102
Pages: 151–161

Head Matter:
9198
HAND v. KELLY, AS ADMR., ETC.
(86 S. E. 382.)
Probate Court. Jurisdiction. Creditor's Actions. Pleadings. Appeal and Error.
1. Appeal and Error.—An order depriving a party of a mode of trial to which he is entitled by law is at once appealable.
2. Creditor's Action — Pleadings. — Allegations of the existence of creditors, who are sought to be brought in as parties, and for whose benefit the action is brought, are essential to an action in the nature of a creditor’s bill to marshal the assets of an intestate’s estate.
3. Pleading—Jurisdiction.—In determining a question of jurisdiction accurate pleading is often a matter of substance, and not merely of form.
4. Courts—Jurisdiction.—The probate Court has no jurisdiction of ah action against an administrator on an unliquidated claim against his intestate, where the vital question is the integrity of the debt, as the administrator is entitled to have that issue tried by jury.
5. Creditor's Bills.—A creditor must establish her unliquidated demand against an intestate’s estate before a Court and jury before she can ask the sale of the lands of his estate in aid of assets.
6. Appeal and Error.—On appeal from the probate to the Circuit Court the appellant cannot demand a trial of questions of fact by jury as a right.
7. Creditor's Bills—Jurisdiction.—When a creditor of an intestate’s estate has first established her claim at law, and personal assets are insufficient, she may maintain an action in equity to enforce it against descended land, and the Court in order to do complete justice could pass upon all claims therein presented against the estate.
Before Hon. C. J. Ramage, special Judge, Columbia, December, 1914.
Reversed.
Action by Aileen Voight Hand against E. C. Kelly, individually and as administrator of the estate of Carrie Kelly, deceased.
The facts are thus stated by Mr. Chief Justice Gary:
This action was commenced in the Court of probate for Richland county for the purpose of recovering judgment against the defendant, and for the purpose of selling the lands of the estate of Carrie Kelly, the deceased, in aid of assets.
The action is against E. C. Kelly, individually and as administrator of the estate of Carrie Kelly, deceased.
The complaint alleges that the defendant, E. C. Kelly, is the sole heir at law and distributee of Carrie Kelly, deceased, who died intestate on the 13th of February, 1913, and is the duly qualified administrator of the estate of Carrie Kelly, deceased.
It is also alleged, that Carrie Kelly was indebted to -the plaintiff, at the time of her death, in the sum of one thousand and thirty dollars.
It is further alleged, that the personal estate of Carrie Kelly, deceased, is insufficient to pay the debts of said estate, but that she owned certain real estate in the city of Columbia, S. C., at the time of her death.
The prayer of the complaint is as follows:
“Wherefore, plaintiff demands judgment against the defendant: 1. For the sum of one thousand and thirty ($1,030) dollars. 2. That if the personal estate of Carrie Kelly, deceased, be insufficient to pay the indebtedness to this plaintiff, and to the other creditors, that the lot of land above described be sold, and the proceeds thereof be applied to the payment of the costs of administration, the costs of this suit, and the debts of said estate, and the balance, if any, be distributed according to law.”
The defendant answered the complaint, denying certain allegations thereof, and setting up several defenses.
The defendant also interposed a demurrer to the complaint, on the following grounds:
“That this is an action by the plaintiff against the defendant, as administrator of the estate of Carrie.Kelly, to recover judgment for an alleged debt upon an alleged contract.
That this defendant does not admit the debt or the contract, but, on the contrary, denies the same, and this Court has no jurisdiction to try such action.”
The demurrer was overruled by the probate Judge, and on appeal to the Circuit Court, his ruling was sustained, on the following authorities, which were cited by his Honor, the Circuit Judge: McNamee v. Waterbury, 4 S. C. 165; Scruggs v. Foote, 19 S. C. 274; Dyson v. Jones, 65 S. C. 308, 43 S. E. 667.
Mr. D. W. Robinson, for appellant,
submits: In actions for recovery of money only, the right to trial by jury is inviolate: Const., art I, sec. 25; Code Civil Proc. 1912, sec. 312; 28 S. C. 533; 31 S. C. 265; 36 S. C. 561; 54 S. C. 359; 61 S. C. 5; 19 S. C. 290, 291; 52 S. C. 463; 29 S. C. 63. Issue here was triable by jury, unless waived: 91 S. C. 424; 85 S. C. 70; 43-S. C. 301. Probate Court is of limited jurisdiction: 4 S. C. 169; and must not assume constructive powers: 1 Bailey 460; 12 S. C. 214; 112 U. S. 306; 8 How. 449; 6 Wheat. 127; 1 Hill 53; 79 S. C. 320, 321. Claim must first be established: 60 S. C. 345, 349; 69 S. C. 237, 239. Cases distinguished: 19 S. C. 274 ; 65 S. C. 317; 80 S. C. 159, 160. Equity rule in creditor’s actions: 82 Fed. 780; 140 U. S. 106; 149 U. S. 451; 27 S. C. 416; 80 S. C. 89. Mode of trial essential: 61 S. C. 4; 99 S. C. 466.
Messrs. Shand, Benet, Shand & McGowan, for respondent,
cite: As to jurisdiction of probate Court: Code Civ. Proc., sec. 42; Civil Code 3637; 4 S. C. 156; 19 S. C. 274. Appeal premature: 4 S. C. T56. Not necessary to exhaust legal remedies: 29 S. C. 84; 4 S. C. 293; 21 S. C. 159; 60 S. C. 351.
September 28, 1915.

Opinion:
The opinion of the Court was delivered by
Mr. Justice Gage.
Ihave not been able to concur in the conclusions expressed by the Chief Justice and by Mr. Justice Fraser.
I think the complaint ought to be dismissed.
It is a matter of indifference that the plaintiff sued in the probate Court rather than in the Circuit Court. This action will not lie in either Court; the defendant could not get that which he demands in either of them.
The respondent's initial objection, that the appeal is premature, is not tenable; the issue made involves the mode of trial, by the Court or by a jury; and that is always an essential issue, right at the threshold of the cause.
The appellant's initial contention, that the complaint does not state a case for equitable relief, goes to the vitals of the case.
It is true the Code of Civil Procedure directs that pleadings must be liberally construed. (Section 209.)
Granting that the plaintiff intended to draft a creditor's bill, yet the question of his right to such a bill still remains.
But we think the complaint cannot be even sustained as one which attempted to state a creditor's bill.
There is no allegation that the estate was debtor to another person than the plaintiff; there is no allegation that the suit was for the benefit of all creditors, and no plea for creditors to come in.
There is a plea that the personal estate is insufficient to pay the debts of the estate; and there is reference, but in the prayer only, about insufficiency of personal estate, about other creditors, and about debts of said estate.
A cause well pleaded is half won; and the insistence upon accurate pleading is not always form, but often substance; it is so in the instant case.
The real question made by the appellant is, that the suit is to recover a considerable sum of money, on an unliquidated demand, without the intervention of a jury, and that issue will be considered without reference to the form of pleading, and just as if a creditor's bill had been properly drawn.
It is true that demands like the plaintiff's have been established before Courts and without the verdict of a jury; but generally in actions begun by executors, wherein creditors have been called in, and wherein creditors came and submitted their demands to a Court without a jury.
And in some cases the creditors have sued directly on such demands before Courts without a jury, as in Scruggs v. Foote, 19 S. C. 274, and Dyson v. Jones, 65 S. C. 308, 43 S. E. 677.
In both those cases the mode of trial, by the Court, without a jury, had not been resisted in the first instance; and the actions were in the Circuit Court and to vacate the judgments which had been aforetime rendered by the probate Court.
In Hughes v. Kirkpatrick, 37 S. C. 168, 15 S. E. 912, the Court in effect held that the creditors had waived the right to a jury trial by proving the demand before a Court without a jury.
In Cleveland v. Mills, 9 S. C. 436, the issues were tried before a jury; and so in Wilson v. York, 43 S. C. 302, 21 S. E. 82; though the last case was not wholly of the character as that at bar.
But further reference to cases will blunt the issue made by the appeal. Those cases which have already been decided speak for themselves, and their voice cannot be changed by a review of them.
The Courts of this State, and legislatures, too, and surely most Courts and legislatures, have long since concluded on common principles of honesty that if a person dies and leaves debts unpaid, debts of any sort, and leaves also land, but no personalty to pay his debts, then the land must go for the debts, if pursued in time.
How the land shall be reached, therefore, is sometimes a question of mere form and procedure; but in the instant case the vital question is the integrity of the debt, and, therefore, the tribunal to determine that integrity.
It will be admitted on all hands that if the plaintiff had omitted the 10th paragraph of the complaint, that paragraph which alleges insufficiency of personal assets, then the case would have been one for a jury, and, therefore, one denied to the probate Court, and to any Court without the power to empanel a jury.
It will not be denied that if the plaintiff had a lien on the land to secure her debt, then the case would have been one for a Court with a jury, probate or Common Pleas.
Some of the Judges have referred to the plaintiff's right against the land as an "equity;" it may be; it is a right, but it is only one to be enforced against the heir when the debt of the ancestor shall have been proven to be true.
The plaintiff must first establish before, a Court and jury her demand, before she may proceed to fix it upon the defendant's descended real estate; and that is the fundamental reason she may not maintain an action like this upon an unproven demand. 3 Pomeroy Equity, sec. 1415, et seq.; 8 R. C. L., page 20; Brock v. Kirkpatrick, 60 S. C. 322, 38 S. E. 779; 8 A. & E. Decisions in Equity, page 309.
If the cause should proceed to a trial in the probate Court, and if the plaintiff's demand should be there allowed, and if the cause should be appealed to the Circuit Court, then the defendant's right to a jury would be gone. Rollin v. Whipper, 17 S. C. 32; Ex parte Appeller, 35 S. C. 420, 14 S. E. 931; Hughes v. Kirkpatrick, 37 S. C. 168, 15 S. E. 912.
It is true,' if the plaintiff's demand should first be lawfully established as true; and if she should then file her bill to enforce it against descended land, and because the personal assets were insufficient therefor; then the-cause would be one in equity; the Court would do complete justice, and try the truth of all claims thereafter presented against the estate.
In my judgment the complaint ought to be dismissed.
Messrs. Justices Hydrick and Watts concur in the opinion announced bjr Mr. Justice Gage.
Footnote.—As to liability of heirs for obligations qf ancestor, see note in 21 L. R. A. 89.