Court Opinion

ID: 9833801
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 23:02:31.16484+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:44:06.907203
License: Public Domain

On Appellee’s Motion for Rehearing.
In predicating error upon our holding that in making sale of the property the probate court has every power which, the district court has to protect appellee’s rights, appel-lee points out that the manifest purpose of appellants is to delay the sale in order that the estate may benefit by use of the property, and in order to subject the proceeds of sale to payment of expenses of funeral, last illness and administration, and of allowances, attorney’s fees, etc.
' What the administrators may urge or claim in the probate court has no bearing upon the question of its jurisdiction; nor is such question affected by the wider powers of that court over those of the district court in making sales. The judge and not the administrators will pass upon the orders of that court. The duties and obligations of fairness and impartiality to all parties litigant, and the presumption that those duties and obligations will be performed, apply alike to the official acts of the judges of each of these courts. The wider discretion vested in the probate^ judge is for a manifestly salutary purpose)' and against abuse of that discretion ample protection is afforded in the right of appeal. Proceeds of the sale (until appellee’s debt is satisfied) are not subject to the claims contended for by the administrators; and appellee’s right in this regard cannot be prejudiced or impaired by sale through the probate court. The property is an asset of the estate and is in the custody of the probate court, whose jurisdiction to administer thereon is exclusive, excepting only where its powers adequately to protect the interests of all parties is wanting. Such inadequacy does not appear in the instant case,, and the jurisdiction of the probate court should therefore not be infringed.
The motion is overruled.
Overruled.