Opinion ID: 2384488
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Action To Compel Return of Assets of the Estate of Harriet Miller Hawkins to the Court and for Attachment of the Person of Lynn Hawkins

Text: Mrs. Hawkins died June 10, 1961, and her husband, Lynn A. Hawkins, was appointed executor of her estate. Notice of the appointment was given by due advertisements, the last of which appeared on July 7, 1961. Before filing any inventory or accounting in this estate, on July 9, 1962, Lynn Hawkins distributed the assets of the estate to the persons entitled under the will of Mrs. Hawkins. Upon learning of this, on August 19, 1963, a proceeding was instituted to require the executor to file an inventory and account and surety bonds and this the court below directed on September 10, 1963. Having failed to abide by the court order as to filing bonds, the court held Lynn Hawkins in contempt. In December 1963 petitions were filed in the Orphans' Court of McKean County (1) to show cause why the assets distributed under the will of Mrs. Hawkins should not be delivered to the court for further disposition and (2) the person of Lynn Hawkins attached for failure to file the bonds as directed by the court. In the account, filed under direction of the court, it was shown that distribution had been made to Lynn Hawkins of assets totalling $67,362.47, to Betty Piech (niece) $20,484.08, to Jean P. Healey (niece) $20,809.08, and to Donna Peebles (niece) $20,484.11 or a total distribution of $129,139.74. The court below, in dismissing this petition, did so upon the ground that the distribution of assets by Lynn Hawkins as executor was proper and in accordance with Section 732 of the Fiduciaries Act of 1949 (Act of April 18, 1949, P.L. 512, § 732, as amended, 20 PS § 320.732). The basis of the court's ruling was that appellants had not given any written notice under the statute of their claims against Harriet Hawkins, decedent, either to Lynn Hawkins, her personal representative, or to his attorney of record prior to the distribution of assets of the estate by the executor. In the two actions  the 1946 action and the 1954 action  Lynn Hawkins, as executor of the estate of Mrs. Hawkins, had been substituted in place of Mrs. Hawkins by stipulation and the attorney of record for the estate of Mrs. Hawkins was also the attorney of record for Mrs. Hawkins and Lynn Hawkins in both the 1946 and 1954 actions. The Act of 1949, supra, provides that a personal representative may, at his own risk and without accounting, distribute real or personal property without liability to a claimant who has not given the statutorily required notice within (a) one year after advertisement of grant of letters or (b) thereafter prior to distribution. In construing a similar statute, this Court said in Doster Estate, 346 Pa. 455, 458, 31 A. 2d 142: Knowledge by a fiduciary of the existence of a contingent claim does not relieve the presumptive creditor of the duty to give notice thereof to the fiduciary under the Fiduciaries Act of 1917. [citing cases]. However, in the case at bar, Mrs. Hawkins' executor not only knew of the existence of the two claims embodied in the 1946 and 1954 lawsuits, but, by stipulation, became, after Mrs. Hawkins' death, a party in both lawsuits as the personal representative of her estate. Moreover, the executor's counsel who so stipulated was not only counsel for Mrs. Hawkins during her lifetime but counsel after her death for the executor in both lawsuits. Furthermore, this counsel knew from correspondence between the court and parties that said claims were being pressed and such notice came to counsel within a year of the death of Mrs. Hawkins. The fact of substitution by stipulation of Mrs. Hawkins' personal representative in the pending litigation of these claims in itself constituted an acknowledgement of notice of the pendency of the two claims. Section 732 of the Fiduciaries Act of 1949 was intended as a statute of repose of claims of non-diligent creditors and not as a statute whereby legitimate claims, the existence of which both the personal representative and his counsel had acknowledged, could be outlawed. The concatenation of events which transpired after Mrs. Hawkins' death leads us to believe that they were planned to lull appellants into a sense of security by stipulating the substitution of record in both suits of the personal representative and then within two days after the expiration of the year after the last advertisement of the grant of letters and without filing either inventory or account, dispose by way of distribution of the assets of an estate to which appellants would have recourse if successful in establishing their claims. This Court will not countenance the use of the Act of 1949, supra, as a shield to place assets of an estate beyond the reach of legitimate creditors under the instant factual situation. It is obvious this distribution was accomplished for the purpose of defeating whatever claims appellants had against Mrs. Hawkins or her estate. The court below fell into grievous error under the instant factual circumstances in finding that neither the personal representative or his counsel had acknowledged notice of appellants' claims. Order is reversed and the matter is remanded to the court below for the purpose of directing the return to the court by Lynn Hawkins, Betty Piech, Donna Peebles and Betty Healey of all assets distributed to them from Mrs. Hawkins' estate to await final disposition of appellants' claims against that estate and for the further purpose of attaching the person of Lynn Hawkins until such time as he fully abides by the court order of September 10, 1963. Costs on Mrs. Hawkins' Estate.