76 Ind. 527 | Ind. | 1881
This was a proceeding, based upon a claim filed against the estate of Robert Graham, deceased, by Mollie Evans, James Graham and John W. Graham, children and only heirs at law of the decedent.
The complaint represented to the court that the said Rob•ert Graham had died on the 5th day of July, 1874; that there descended from him to the plaintiffs six hundred acres of lands; that administration on the estate was thereafter granted to Joseph O. Graham ; that the said Joseph O. Graham, as such administrator, had been permitted to receive the rents arising from said lands, as well .as the proceeds of other lands descended to the plaintiffs from their mother, and sold by their guardian, and to appropriate such rents and proceeds to the payment of the debts against the estate, in the belief that said rents and proceeds would be sufficient to pay all of such debts, and to thus prevent the lands which had descended to them from their father, as above stated, from being sold to pay any portion of the same; that said estate had proved to be insolvent; that, by reason of the insolvency of the estate, the plaintiffs, acting through their guardian, had permitted the rents and proceeds referred to as above to be applied to the payment of debts against the estate, under a mistake of the facts constituting the true condition of the estate. Judgment was consequently demanded for a repayment of such rents and proceeds. During the progress of the cause, and before it was tried, Joseph O. Graham resigned his trust as administrator, and Thomas R. Hardy was appointed as his successor.
The court, at the l-equest of the ¡parties, made a special finding of the facts, which, summarily stated, was as follows : That Robert Graham died in Spencer county, where he resided, on the 5th day of July, 1874, leaving the plaintiffs, of the ages of eighteen, seventeen and fourteen years, respectively, as his only h'eirs at law, surviving him; that the decedent, at the time of his death, was the owner of four
From these facts the court came to the following conclusions of law :
First. That $400 of the proceeds of the sale of the eighty-acre tract of land sold by the plaintiffs’ guardian was paid over to the administrator of the estate of Robert Graham, under a mistake of fact, and that the plaintiffs were entitled to recover from said estate two-thirds of that sum; that is to say, $266.66, with interest, making the aggregate sum of $310.65, to be paid as a preferred claim.
The appellants, the claimants and plaintiffs below, complain only of the conclusion of law, at which the court arrived, holding that the estate was not liable for the rents received by the administrator, and applied by him to the payment of debts against it.
In support of their appeal, they argue, first, that under the law the rents which accrued on the four-hundred-acre tract, after the death of Robert Graham, went to them as his heirs, and not to his administrator. It may be regarded as the settled law of this State, as well as the generally accepted doctrine of the authorities, that the rents which accrue from the real estate of an intestate, after his death, go to his heirs, and not to his administrator. King v. Anderson, 20 Ind. 385; Rubottom v. Morrow, 24 Ind. 202; Hankins v. Kimball, 57 Ind. 42; Boynton v. The P. & S. R. R. Co., 4 Cush. 467; Haslage v. Krugh, 25 Pa. St. 97; Foteaux v. Lepage, 6 Iowa, 123; Smith v. Bland, 7 B. Mon. 21; Stinson v. Stinson, 38 Me. 593.
The appellants argue, secondly, that the provision of the act concerning the settlement of decedents’ estates, which requires the administrator to take possession of, and to inventory, the “emblements and annual crops, whether severed or not from the land, raised by labor,” 2 R. S. 1876, p. 505, sec. 34, do not extend to and embrace uncut grass growing in the meadow, and that hence the grass growing upon the four-hundred-acre tract of land, at the time of their father’s death, descended to them, and did not go to the administrator as personal property constituting assets of the estate. Webster defines an “emblement” to be “the produce or fruit of land sown or planted ; the growing crops of those vegetable productions of the soil, such as grain, garden
The' distinction between annual crops, merely vegetable productions of the soil, raised by labor bestowed during the year, and trees, fruits and grass, which are, to a greater or less extent, of spontaneous growth, may be said to be well recognized and firmly'established by the authorities. The words “emblements” and “annual crops,” used in the act concerning decedents,’ estates, supra, do not, therefore, include uncut grass growing in the field, which descends with the land to the heir. This is the construction given to that act by Howland & Winter in their Manual for Executors and Administrators (seepage 58, sec. 172), and we are unable to see that any other construction could be fairly given to it without palpably disregarding the well recognized and firmly established distinction referred to as above.
The appellants argue, .thirdly, that the administrator, by taking possession of the growing crops upon, and by receiving the rents of, the real estate which descended to them from the intestate, became their trustee, and not the trustee of the creditors of the estate, and that, by reason of the application of these growing crops and rents to the payment of the preferred claims against the estate, they, the appellants, became not only creditors, but preferred creditors, of
But the application by the administrator of such rents, issues and profits to the payment of the debts against his decedent’s estate, does not create any claim against the ■estate in favor of the heirs. This results from the natui’e of the liability the administrator incurs to the heirs by receiving money belonging to them, and from the doctrine recognized in the cases of Rodman v. Rodman, 54 Ind. 444, and Hankins v. Kimball, 57 Ind. 42, heretofore cited. Such an application by the administrator of rents, issues and profits held by him for the heirs, is but an improper commingling of the money and business of two estates at the same time in his hands, and a consequent conversion of the money in his hands belonging to the heirs, for which he becomes personally liable to them. The estate, as an entity, separate from the administrator, is but a fund, an inanimate thing, incapable of becoming a party to such a conversion, and hence can not be made liable for it to those whose money has been converted by the administrator.
We have not considered the question as to whether the intestate’s contract with Woollen, for the cutting and baling of the crop of 1874, amounted to such a constructive severance of the grass from the land as made that crop assets in the hands of the administrator, as the facts concerning that contract are very meagrely stated in the special finding. But, assuming that contract to have been a binding one upon the estate, the one-half of the baled hay to which the dece
The judgment is affirmed, with costs.