8 Mo. App. 443 | Mo. Ct. App. | 1880
delivered the. opinion of the court.
One question only need be considered in this case. The. defendant introduced in evidence a certified copy of the final settlement and discharge made at the March term, 1877, of the St. Louis Probate' Court, of the plaintiff as administratrix of the estate on behalf of which this suit was brought. It appears that the suit was brought on May 25, 1877, and more than two months after the date of such final settlement and discharge. It seems that, through mistake or oversight, the demand here sued on, which was for meats furnished by the intestate to the defendant, was not put in the inventory, and the plaintiff contends that on this account, and because the demand has not been included in any settlement made by the administratrix, her representative character quoad hoc still remains, and the discharge operates only upon what was included in the settlement.
We do not think we are at liberty to examine the ques
The view which seems consistently to have been followed by the courts .of this State, and which the course of legislation indirectly has confirmed, is that the final settlement, when followed by the discharge, covers the whole matter of the administration, and, in the absence of fraud, accomplishes, in the eye of the law, the purpose of our statute.
The law conclusively asserts, not necessarily that every asset has been administered upon, but that, under circumstances as they existed, the administrator fully discharged his duties and settled the estate, and that consequently his functions are at an end. The object of the law is practical: to put the estate into liquidation, to make it pay its debts, and to distribute the surplus. But the distribution of every asset is not a principal object; nor is it of the essence
The plaintiff’s counsel has referred us to, and we have carefully read, an able and interesting article involving the question here discussed, in the fourth volume (1875) of the Southern Law Review, the author being the learned judge of the St. Louis Probate Court. We cannot assent to the conclusions there reached, and in any view we think the law and practice so well established in this State that a legislative change would be essential.
The judgment is reversed and the cause dismissed.