Court Opinion

ID: 9809510
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 21:15:37.493125+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:33:25.291226
License: Public Domain

Montgomery J.,
dissenting : The referee found as a fact that in July, 1897, Frost, the administrator, paid an attorney’s fee of $100 and that he had paid before that time to other attorneys for services in the settlement of the estate, $40. Upon that finding of fact the referee held as a matter of law that, as the administrator had paid $40 for counsel fees in the settlement of the estate and as there was no evidence to show that he had any unusual trouble in transacting the. business of the estate, and that as the $100 was paid seventeen years after anything had been done by the administrator in closing up the estate and after this action was begun, the administrator was not entitled to have any allowance out of the estate for the fee of $100. The defendant, Frost, Administrator, excepted to these findings of the referee, and his Honor sustained the exception, and the plaintiff excepted. There was error in the ruling of *648his Honor. I think that the administrator should not have been allowed the $100 fee which he paid to his attorney out of the assets of the estate, for the reason that the service rendered by the attorney was for the attempted prevention of the recovery against the administrator by the distributees of that which belonged to them.
■It follows from.what we have said as to the ruling of his Honor on the attorney’s fee of $100, that the ruling of his Honor in sustaining the third exception of the defendant Frost (to which the plaintiff excepted) was erroneous, and that the amount therefore of the balance which the referee reported to 'be due by the administrator Frost, was the correct amount — the non-allowance of commissions to the administrator by the referee having been approved by his Honor.
The Board of Commissioners of Davie County were made a party defendant, of their own. motion, after the commencement of this action, and in their answer they averred that a judgment was had in their favor for $1642.18 and costs at the Fall term,' 1873, of Davie Superior Court and that the same is still due and unpaid. The Board of Commissioners, further in their answer admit the allegations of the complaint, and pray for judgment that a first lien in their favor maybe declared upon the estate of the defendant Frost’s intestate. In their replication, the plaintiffs plead the Statute of Limitations against the judgment of the'Board of Commissioners. The referee found as a fact that “After the death of W. Stonestreet and appointment of E. Frost as administrator upon his estate, an execution issued on said judgment against W. Stonestreet prior to. his death, was presented to the said administrator by the sheriff and payment demanded of him, within one year from *649the date of his appointment as administrator, and said administrator did not dispute said debt or the liability of the estate of his intestate to pay the same, but declined to pay for lack of assets in his hands at the time, and recognized said judgment as a valid debt against the estate of his intestate.” Then followed findings of law, to the effect that the presentation of the execution to Frost, administrator, was a sufficient presentation and filing under Section 164 of The Code-, that the presenta t-ion of the execution to the administrator Frost, and his recognition of the validity of the debt rendered it unnecessary for the county to bring an action to stop the running of the Statute; that the judgment of the Board of Commissioners was not barred by the Statute of Limitations and that the same should be paid by the administrator, Frost, before the plaintiffs; the distribu-tees, should recover anything. The plaintiffs filed exceptions to these findings of law and his Honor overruled the exceptions, and the plaintiff excepted.
I am of opinion that his Honor was in error in refusing to sustain those exceptions of the plaintiffs,' which were numbered 3, 4, 5, 6. The language of that part of Section 164 of The Code, on the filing of indebtedness with the personal representative, is : ‘ ‘But if the claim upon which such cause, of action is based be filed with the personal representative within the time above specified, and the same shall be admitted by him, it shall not he necessary to bring an action upon such claim to prevent the bar.” What is a reasonable construction to be placed upon the word “filed” as used in Section 164? It has reference, certainly, to the old custom of stringing on a line or wire papers of value for past or future usefulness, or may be both. The same end is subserved by tying together or bundling papers and labelling them *650or cataloguing them on rolls or lists for future use. Now the referee found no such filing as that by the sheriff with the administrator Erost. He found that that officer presented to the administrator the execution for payment, and that the administrator recognized the debt as a valid one but declined to pay it for lack of as-. sets. The filing of claims as provided for under Section 164 of The Code, is intended to be of advantage to creditors who do not receive or who do not expect to receive payment of their debts on presentation, in enabling them to leave with the personal representative a memorandum of their claims to save the trouble and expense of bringing suit, and to prevent the bar of the Statute of Limitations. And the act of the creditor in filing the claim is an admission on his part that he does not expect the immediate payment of the debt, but that he wishes the claim entered, “filed,” somewhere, in some way, by the personal representative — better in a book kept for that purpose, or in bundles labelled, or on a file (though such actual filing may not be essential to comply with the The Code).
The purpose of the creditor then is, by filing his claim with the administrator, to avoid the running of the Statute against his debt, and to fix the debt by the admission of the personal representati ve — the very reverse of presenting the claim for instant payment. Now it is clear that the Sheriff did not file the judgment of the Board of Commissioners with Frost, the administrator, in the sense of our construction of Section 164. The referee did not find that he went to the administrator Frost, at the request or even suggestion of the Board of Commissioners, and the presumption must be, from the words of the finding of the referee, that the Sheriff only wished, as the officer of the law to whom the execution *651was issued, to collect immediately the amount of the execution and return the same, less his commissions, to the Board of Commissioners. The execution was unadvisedly issued, to say the least, for the reason that it was issued after the death of the judgment debtor, and on that account was void — the judgment having been rendered in 1873, and the defendant in the execution having died in 1877. It follows from what we have said above that the judgment of the Board of Commissioners was barred by the Statute of Limitations, and that the defendant Board of Commissioners was not entitled to receive anything out of the estate or assets of the intestate of Frost, the administrator.
The case ought to be remanded to the Superior Court of Davie County to the end that the report of the referee might be reformed according to my' view herein expressed and a proper judgment entered thereon in the Superior Court in favor of the plaintiffs.