Court Opinion

ID: 6544379
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2022-07-19 22:18:23.439999+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:55:55.564187
License: Public Domain

Hughes, J., (after stating the facts.) Appellant contends that the appellees had a remedy at law by appeal from the judgment of the probate court allowing the claim of Robert M. Scott. The administrator, Miller, might have appealed, and was urged to do so, but he would not. The appellees here could not appeal, because they were not parties to the record. Austin v. Crawford County, 30 Ark. 578; Arnett v. McCain, 47 Ark. 411. Even if appellees had a remedy at law, chancery had concurrent jurisdiction, and fraud is always the subject of chancery jurisdiction. Our own court has decided that a chancery court has the jurisdiction to set aside the allowance of a claim in the probate court obtained by fraud. The fraud must consist in obtaining the allowance. West v. Waddill, 33 Ark. 575; Reinhardt v. Gartrell, 33 Ark. 727. An administrator is not bound to plead the statute of limitations under ordinary circumstances. There are extraordinary circumstances in this case. Twelve years had elapsed since the claim was barred. No effort appears to have been made to collect it. The claimant testified that he had notes for the amount which had been lost or taken from his trunk, but he seems to have made no effort to get new notes instead of the ones said to have been lost or taken from him. This is not natural, even in a brother who intended finally to insist on payment of a debt. Under some circumstances, less than twenty years will afford a presumption of payment. Long delay in presenting a claim may in some circumstances be a circumstance tending to prove payment, and in other instances it may be sufficient, when taken in connection with other circumstances, to create a presumption of payment. Long v. Straus, 124 Ind. 84. There was less than- twenty years’ delay in presenting the claim in the case cited. The presumption of payment after the lapse of twenty years is one of law, if not satisfactorily rebutted or explained. The presumption of payment from lapse of time less than twenty years is one of fact, from lapse of time in connection with other circumstances. 1 Greenleaf, Ev. p. 136, §39(16 Ed.) In Woodruff v. Saunders, 15 Ark. 144, Judge Scott, delivering the opinion of the court, said: “At common law, a debt was presumed to be paid if unclaimed and without recognition for the space of- twenty years, in the absence of any explanatory evidence. * * * Before the expiration of twenty years, the law did not make the presumption; nevertheless the jury, upon issue of payment, might infer the fact of payment for [from] a lapse of time short of twenty years in combination with other circumstances in evidence, such as * * * the parties residing in the same neighborhood with each other, without any demand being made, and other like circumstances.” We think the circumstances in this case, in connection with the long delay in presenting the claim for payment, and the absence of any effort to keep it alive, raise the presumption that the debt had been paid. We are therefore constrained to find that there is not a clear preponderance in the evidence against the decree .of the chancellor, which is affirmed.