Hunt v. Potter

58 Miss. 96 | Miss. | 1880

Lead Opinion

Chalmers, C. J.,

delivered the opinion of the court.

Greorge L. Potter, an attorney-at-law, was employed by S. F. Hunt to defend a suit for $150,000, brought by the United States government against the latter and the sureties on his official bond as internal revenue collector. Hunt died pending the litigation, and Potter thereafter continued his attention to the case without objection from the personal representatives of the estate. There was no agreement as to the fee to be paid, and, Potter being now dead, this bill is filed by his administrator against the executrix of Hunt, in the Chancery Court of Hinds County, in Avhich the estate of Hunt is being-administered, for the purpose of having the amount of Potter’s fee settled by the chancellor upon a quantum meruit, with a decree for its payment.

It is objected, by demurrer, that the remedy is in a court of law, and not in equity.

The question presented is whether, by sect.. 976 of the Code of 1871, the chancery court in which an estate is being administered is given jurisdiction to hear and determine purely legal demands against it, and by decree to direct their payment. We held in Clopton v. Haughton, 57 Miss. 787, that jurisdiction Avas by this section conferred in behalf of creditors Avhose claims had been reduced to judgment, to compel their payment, but we pretermitted the question whether a creditor at large could, by virtue of the section referred to, have the validity and the amount of his demand adjudicated in the court which had granted administration of the estate and Avas •engaged in winding it up.

This question Ave must now meet, and Ave answer it in the affirmative.

The statute declares that, “ in addition to the powers and jurisdiction hereinbefore conferred upon said chancery court, the court in which the will may haVe been admitted to probate, letters of administration granted, or guardians may have been appointed, shall have power and jurisdiction to hear and determine all questions in relation to the execution of the trusts of such executors, administrators, and guardians, or other officers appointed for administration and management of such estates, and of all demands against the same, and [against] such estates, whether claimed by heirs-at-law, distributees, devisees, legatees, wards, creditors, or otherwise,” etc.

“ The power and jurisdiction ” is given not only “ to hear and determine all questions in relation to the execution of the trusts ” by the fiduciaries to whom they have been committed, and ‘ ‘ all demands against the same ’ ’ (that is to say, all demands against said fiduciaries), but also “to hear and determine all demands” against “such estates” (that is to say, against the estates by them being administered).

It will be observed that we insert the word “ against ” before the words “such estates,” but we do so only to make the sentence more euphonious, and because such is its obvious meaning.

There is no escaping the plain import of these words. The explicit declaration is that the court which has granted admintration of an estate shall be open to hear the complaints of all persons interested in it, both for the purpose of compelling-a due performance of duty by the administrator and of determining the justice of all demands propounded against it. While it does not compel the institution of any suit in that forum, its object seems to be to authorize, and perhaps to' encourage such suits, to the end that the tribunal charged with the duty of settling the estate may be armed with full power to adjudicate and determine every question in any manner affecting it. It simply extends to solvent estates that power which the court has always exercised as to insolvent ones, and is intended to draw, or at least to authorize the drawing, into a single forum, so far as the estates of decedents are concerned, of all the powers heretofore distributed among-several. ' It still remains optional with the creditor, however, whether he will avail himself of the new jurisdiction, or whether he will first reduce his demand to judgment in a court of law and then file it for allowance in a court of chancery.

We are not unmindful that in giving this construction to the statute, or rather in announcing a meaning- that seems too plain to require construction, a new and wide departm-e from the course of practice heretofore pursued in the State is inaugurated or sanctioned, but we doubt neither the correctness of the views announced nor the wisdom of the system inaugurated. We feel confident that it will promote the interest of the estates of decedents, and simplify the methods of enforcing demands against them, to vest in a single court full jurisdiction to determine all questions in relation to them. Neither do we entertain any doubt as to the constitutionality of such legislation. Chancery courts are by the Constitution given full jurisdiction “in all matters testamentary and of administration.” The adjudication of demands against the estate of a deceased person falls fairly within the terms, “matters of administration.”

It will be observed that the jurisdiction is by the statute limited to demands against estates, and does not extend to demands of estates against living persons.

It is possible, too, that the word “ demands,” though exceedingly broad in its signification, should be held as not extending to demands arising ex delicto, but should be limited to the several classes of demands or claims mentioned in subsequent sections of the chapter, to wit: judgments and decrees, in sect. 1137 ; recognizance, bails, specialties, notes, bonds, bills of exchange, etc., in sect. 1138; leases, in sect. 1139, and open accounts, in sect. 1140; or, generally, to demands arising ex contractu. Upon this subject, however, we express no definite opinion.

Decree overruling demurrer affirmed, and sixty days given to answer.

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Concurrence Opinion

George, J.,

concurring.

In the opinion of the court, read by the chief justice, a very enlarged jurisdiction, in virtue of the statute, is conceded to the chancery coui’t. In view of this, it is proper that we say something of the power of the Legislature to add to the jurisdiction of the several courts, as conferred on them by the Constitution. That the statute, in terms, gives the jurisdiction to each of the chancery courts to enforce the collection of all debts due by decedents whose estates are being administered in that court, as stated in the opinion, is, we think, undeniable. We do not doubt that the statute as thus construed is constitutional. It is difficult, if not impossible, to draw a line which will exactly define in all cases what new powers may and what may not be conferred by statute on the several courts. It is easy to mention instances in which jurisdiction, if attempted to be conferred, would be beyond the power of the Legislature to grant. Thus, the Legislature cannot confer on a chancery court the power to try au action of trespass or an indictment for murder. But from the commencement of our judicial history the Legislature has exercised unquestioned the power to enlarge the jurisdiction of the courts provided for in the Constitution. Among these new powers conferred on courts of law may be mentioned the power to entertain bills of discovery in aid of actions pending in them ; the power to entertain actions against married women for the purpose of charging their separate estates with their contracts ; the power to enforce the lien of mechanics ; the power to set aside fraudulent assignments by scire facias. The Legislature has conferred on chancery courts the power to enforce purely legal demands by foreign attachment, and a like power to enforce bonds of receivers appointed by the court and contracts for the purchase of property sold under the decree of the court, and to render judgment in personam for a balance due on a mortgage after a sale of the mortgaged property. And it has conferred on the Supreme Court, which has an appellate jurisdiction only, the power to enter judgments in the first instance on writs of error and appeal bonds, and on recognizances for the appearance of parties before the court.

Under a rule which prohibits the Legislature from enacting laws conferring" new jurisdictions on the several courts, all these grants would he unconstitutional. Most of these grants can be maintained under the following rule, which may now be considered as firmly established in this State, viz. : That, although the particular power granted may never have been exercised by the court to which the grant is made, and has uniformly been a part of the jurisdiction of another court, yet if it pertains to the matters of jurisdiction conferred by the Constitution on the court which is the grantee of the power (as in case of the chancery court, to matters “ of equity or matters of testament and administration,” etc.), and the power granted is auxiliary and appropriate to the complete exercise of the acknowledged jurisdiction of the court as conferred by the Constitution, then it is within the power of the Legislature to confer it.

Under this rule, the grant of the new jurisdiction involved in this case is sustainable. True, the power to enforce a purely legal demand belongs to the common-law courts, and could not, as a substantive, independent power, be conferred on the chancery courts; but when a particular chancery court has under its charge the administration of a decedent’s estate, then it may be clothed with the power to administer it fully and completely, at least to the extent of determining upon every duty imposed by law upon the administrator and enforcing its performance. The law imposes on the administrator the duty of paying all valid debts against the estate, so far as there may be assets. The administrator may dispute a claim presented, or, acknowledging its justice, may neglect to pay it. In the first case, the duty of the administrator to pay can be determined only by a decision as to the validity of the demand; in the latter the duty is acknowledged, but there is a-failure to discharge it. It is, therefore, an appropriate grant of power to the court to authorize it, at the instance of the claimant,¡to compel the administrator to pay the claim, if valid, and to determine upon its validity. The claimant, in asking the interposition of the court to compel the administrator to pajr a demand whose validity has not been settled by judgment at law, submits himself to the jurisdiction of the court to render an adverse judgment against him, which would be a bar to an action at law on the same matter. He is not bound to resort to chancery until his claim has been adjudged valid. He may, however, do so ; and if he does, he invokes under the statute an appropriate power of the court, the exercise of which is extremely convenient for the full and speedy settlement of the estate which is being administered by the court. And there may be instances in which the court, in the discharge of its duty to distribute according to law the assets of the estate, may be authorized to adjudicate upon the validity of the demands of the several claimants though no suits in that court had been instituted to enforce them. The statute only gives the court jurisdiction over demands against the estate, and is, therefore, clearly within the above rule. A very different question would be presented if the Legislature were to attempt to confer the power on a chancery court to enforce collection of demands in favor of an estate administered by it. Such a statute would confer on the court a jurisdiction, against his will, over a party not ordinarily subject to its powers ; and as to the validity of such a law we express no opinion, noting only that it is a different case from the one at bar.