Court Opinion

ID: 9828557
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 18:29:21.446355+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:42:50.365914
License: Public Domain

Sherwood, J.,
concurred in the result upon other grounds. In his opinion it is said that “the proper place for administering such assets must be where alone payment can be enforced against the debtor;” and that, “The assignee of these claims due from the debtors in this State stands in no other or better position than did the public administrator who made the assignment to him, and could confer no rights which he did not possess;” and further, that “An executor or administrator may lawfully sell the personal estate of the deceased, unless prohibited, at public or private sale without the order of the judge of probate, within the jurisdiction of the court where such property is-assets in his hands for administration, and the purchaser will take good title thereto, provided the property was assets within the control and jurisdiction of the court where administration was granted. He can not make such sale, however, when he has not the right to enforce collection.” The learned justice quotes many authorities in support of his position, but admits that there is a conflict of cases upon the subject, and that “several very able jurists take a different view from that above expressed.”
In the case of Abercrombie v. Stillman, 77 Texas, 591, this court held that the assignee of a negotiable instrument, holding under a foreign administrator, held the title and could maintain in our courts a suit for its collection. The mortgage has always been treated here as a mere incident of the debt. The assignment of the debt even by parol draws after it the mortgage as an appurtenant to it. Perkins v. Sterne, 23 Texas, 563.
The substantial controversy is with regard to the right of such an assignee to maintain a suit for the collection of the debt. It was not made to appear that there was an administration in this State upon the estate of the debtor, nor that there was a necessity for one for any purpose, nor that there was any statute of the State of Michigan denying to an administrator in that State the power of making such a transfer.
The judgment is affirmed.

Affirmed.