47 A. 334 | Conn. | 1900
The letter of the defendant, in connection with other facts found, was not a disallowance of the plaintiff's claim and a refusal of payment, within the meaning of § 583 of the General Statutes. The disallowance must be expressed in unequivocal terms. Bradley v. Vail,
The suit was not prematurely brought. Rights of action *324
against a debtor, which the law continues in force after his death, are, upon grant of administration, demands against the administrator as representative of the deceased, and may be established by suit against him as such representative, and may be enforced to the extent of the intestate's property charged with the payment of debts, which is or ought to be in his administrator's hands. 1 Sw. Dig. 453; Pitkin v. Pitkin,
This is the common law of our State. By that law a suit against the administrator as representative of the deceased is the only way by which the validity of a debt claimed as due from the deceased can be conclusively established. The creditor cannot even rely upon an admission of validity by the administrator as binding the estate, whatever effect a direct promise to pay might have. Isaacs v. Stevens,
The defendant assumes that the statute of limitations as to the claim in suit is suspended during the settlement of the estate, and therefore the right of action is suspended. Granting the assumption to be correct, the inference drawn does not follow. There are certain analogies between the relation of an administrator to parties interested in the estate and that of a trustee of an express trust to his cestuis quetrust; but the assets of a solvent estate in the hands of an administrator are not, as the defendant claims, a trust fund administered by a court of equity, and the administrator is not protected from suits, as such trustee may be by the court administering the trust.
Our law authorizing the establishment of a claim by suit against the administrator during the settlement of an estate, has not been changed by statute. The law regulating the settlement of insolvent estates was first enacted in 1716. It permitted the administrator to represent the estate as insolvent. In such case an exclusive mode (subject to the exception stated) was provided for establishing the validity of claims, and therefore the statute prohibited any suit at common law (with a few specified exceptions) pending said settlement. Any inferential effect of this special prohibition would rather be to affirm than to take away the existing right of suit in the case of a solvent estate.
Section 583 of the General Statutes was first enacted in 1817, and authorizes an administrator by notifying a claimant that his demand will not be paid, to compel the bringing of a suit at any time during the settlement of the estate, under penalty of forfeiting all right of action if a suit is not commenced within four months from the date of such notice. The sole object of this statute "was to compel an early settlement of the estate." Spalding v. Butts,
We are aware of no other statute that affects, or is claimed to affect, the right of one whose demand has been duly presented, to establish its validity by suit at any time after the presentation of claims has expired. We find no case in our reports where this point has been directly adjudicated; probably because under our system and practice occasion for bringing such suit is not likely to be frequent, and because the right has never been questioned. But the law as stated by BALDWIN, J., that when the estate is solvent the administrator is liable to the suits of creditors (Sacket v. Mead, supra, p. 17), is impliedly recognized in Robbins v. Coffing,
There is error in the judgment of the Court of Common Pleas, and the cause is remanded to be proceeded with according to law.
In this opinion the other judges concurred.