313 Mass. 715 | Mass. | 1943
The administratrix of the estate of Emma Harding Gwillam, late of Newton, on July 8, 1942, filed in the Probate Court “a representation of insolvency setting forth debts of the deceased amounting to $265; funeral expenses $502.95 and charges of administration $1,500, making a total of $2,267.95; that the total assets of the estate amounted to $579.61. A decree was entered on July 9, 1942, ordering claims of all creditors to be received and examined at the Probate Court on August 20, 1942, and January 11, 1943, and that notice be given accordingly. No account has been filed in this estate. On December 11, 1942, Alfred T. Dunlop, of Newton, filed a proof of claim alleging that the sum of $568.55 was due to him for the funeral, burial, transportation and traveling expenses incidental to the burial of the intestate, which sum he advanced
The matter is not properly before us upon this “reservation and report.” The power of a probate judge to “reserve and report” a case to the full court that is conferred by G. L. (Ter. Ed.) c. 215, § 13 — the sole source of the power to report — ■ is limited to two classes of cases: (a) cases in which interlocutory decrees or orders have been made, and (b) cases that have been “heard for final determination,” in which cases the judge may “reserve and report the evidence and all questions of law therein for consideration of the full court, and thereupon like proceedings shall be had as upon appeal.”
The present case does not come within the first of these . classes. The question reported does not relate to the decree “ordering claims of all creditors to be received and examined.” And no interlocutory decree or order has been ■ made with respect to the proof of claim by Alfred T. Dunlop.
The report does not conform to the requirements for a report in the second class of cases ■ — ■ cases that have been “heard for final determination.” In such a case there must be a report of the entire case and not merely of a part thereof. Agoos v. Cosmopolitan Trust Co. 241 Mass. 103, 106. As was said of the power of the Superior Court to reserve and report a case under a closely similar statute, now G. L. (Ter. Ed.) c. 214, § 31, in Taft v. Stoddard, 141 Mass. 150: “The purpose of this provision is to enable the justice to bring the whole case before the full court after it is ready
Report dismissed.