Court Opinion

ID: 9868160
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-26 18:01:30.106763+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:45:42.483660
License: Public Domain

*303On Petition for Rehearing.
This petition for a rehearing goes to the action of the ■court in refusing to consider exceptions Nos. 1, 2, 6, and '7, which are set out at large in the original opinion, on the ground, as stated in the petition for rehearing:
“All the above items were awarded and allowed .under judgment and decree of the county court upon the approval of the third term settlement made November 26, 1909.”
The record shows that what is called a third term settlement was filed in the county court in 1909, showing a balance due the estate of a large sum, but, as far as the record shows, the county court took no action on this ■account, and rendered no judgment confirming it. If there was any such judgment of the county court it •should have been presented in some way to the trial court. The filing of an account by an administrator in the county court does not raise a presumption that the court has either approved or disapproved it, but if the court has taken any action on it, it must be shown by the records of that court. We reaffirm what was said in the original opinion, that if this account of 1909 had been regularly confirmed by the county court, and no appeal taken therefrom within the time allowed by law, then it would have become res ad,judicata, but we are bound' by the record, and cannot go outside thereof and decide cases on questions not presented to the trial court, and not before us bn the record. From all that appears in the record, the administratrix filed an account in 1909; which lay in the county court until 1911 without action, when another account was filed, taking as a basis the balance shown in the 1909 account, and to this account the excep*304tion was filed, the eighth exception being as to the balance admitted to be due by the administratrix in 1909, as shown by the original opinion. In the condition in which the record comes to this court, this was proper, because, as far as the record shows, no action of any kind was. taken by the county court on this account, and until such act'on was taken, any person interested in the estate had a right to except thereto. If the account of 1909 showed a smaller amount due the estate than was proper, and su’ch account was never approved, any person interested in the estate had a right to except thereto when a new account was filed, taking such balance as the basis for the new account. The petition for rehearing proceeds on the mistaken theory that an order of the county court was made approving the settlement of Í909, and that such order was before the trial court, and appears in the record. No such order appears, and as far as this appeal is concerned, no such order was ever made, for it has become axiomatic that what does not appear will not be presumed to exist. In Broom’s Legal Maxims, p. 131, •it is said:
“This well-established maxim in legal proceedings is founded on principles of justice as well as law, and applies where a party seeks to rely upon any deed or writings which are not accounted for or supplied in the manner which the law prescribes, for in such case they should be treated as against such party as if nonexistent.”
If the plaintiff in error had introduced in evidence any order of the county court approving the settlement of 1909, a very different question would have been presented, but it was not produced, and we cannot presume it exists.
*305We therefore recommend that the petition for rehearing be denied.
By the Court: It is so ordered.