Court Opinion

ID: 9809684
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 21:21:08.50975+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:53:53.065966
License: Public Domain

MONTGOMERY, J.
(dissenting). Tobias Kessler, of Rowan County, died, leaving a last will and testament, one clause of which reads as follows: “Item 15. The balance and residue of my estate of every hind I give, bequeath, and devise, to my daughter, Ingold Newsome, wife of A. II. Newsome, during her lifetime; said estate to be placed in the hands of my trastee, hereafter named and appointed, for the use and 'purposes as follows, to-wit, said trustee is to invest and keep invested said estate, and the interest and income accruing therefrom is to be by him paid to my said daughter, Ingold Newsome, for and during her natural life, and at her death said estate to be paid over by said trustee to her issue: Provided, hoivever, that my said trustee shall not be chargeable with interest on any money or personal estate lying idle in his hands.” II. N. Woodson, the trustee appointed in the will, declined the trust. The plaintiffs, who are also beneficiaries under another clause of the will, and whose interests were also placed under the management and control of Woodson, commenced a proceeding before the Clerk of the Superior Court of Rowan County against certain other of the beneficiaries in the will, including Mrs. Newsome and her children, to have a trustee appointed in the place of Woodson. Mrs. Newsome was a married woman, as was also her daughter, Dora S., the wife of Ed. Goodman, and the husbands of neither have ever been made parties. .The Clerk dismissed the proceeding for want of jurisdiction. An appeal by the plaintiffs carried the case to the Superior Court. At May Term, 1898, and August Term, 1899, of the Supe*500rior Court, by consent of all parties, orders and judgments . were made and entered, by which W. 0. Coghenour was appointed trustee with all the powers and authority conferred by the will on Woodson; and under these judgments Coghe-nour has taken possession of the property mentioned in the will. The present proceeding was instituted for the purpose of having the judgments and orders of the Superior Court made at May Term, 1898, and August Term, 1899, set aside. I think his Honor erred in not having set them aside. A Clerk of the Superior Court has no jurisdiction to appoint a trustee in place of one named in a will who refuses to accept the trust, or who has died. Clerks of the Superior Court, under sec. 1276 of The Code, are authorized and empowered to appoint trustees only in deeds of trust (which includes mortgages). And, besides, the trust was a discretionary one. Again, the Superior Court in term had no jurisdiction. The jurisdiction of the Superior Court in case of appeal from the Clerk is derivative, and, as the Clerk had no jurisdiction, the Superior Court acquired none upon the appeal. In Helms v. Austin, 116 N. C., 751, the Court, Faikclotii, C. J., delivering the opinion, said: ‘(We see no reason why the Court may not amend, and give any relief that the parties may be entitled to according to the facts in any case sent up by the Clerk either by transfer or appeal, provided the original subject-matter be within the jurisdiction of the Clerk.” That decision was rendered, of course, long after the passage of the act (chap. 276, Laws 1887) referred to in the opinion in this case. If the opinion in this case is a correct construction of that act, then it necessarily follows that actions and proceedings of any nature — even such as slander, debt, actions for the recovery of land — can be commenced before the Clerk, and carried by appeal, when dismissed for lack of jurisdiction, to the Superior Court in term time, when juris*501diction will be taken, and the matter heard just as if the suits or actions had been properly commenced in the Superior Court-. If such is the méaning of the act, it would have been plainer to have enacted a law giving to the Clerk original jurisdiction to hear and determine all civil actions and special proceedings.
The husbands of the two married women defendants were not made parties to the proceeding, and for that reason the judgment should have been set aside. But it is said that Mrs. Newsome was a free trader. There was no sufficient evidence on that point upon which his Honor could have found that fact. In fact, there was no evidence in the case, that Mrs. Newsome was a free trader. Only a statement to that effect appeared in the answer of Foil and his wife. In' my opinion, the only evidence competent to prove that a married woman is a free trader, is the writing" itself, with its registration indorsed thereon, or a copy of such writing duly proved and registered, and certified by the register of the county in which the same is recorded.