59 Miss. 393 | Miss. | 1882
delivered the opinion of the court.
The final account presented by Isaac Hudson was a suit instituted by him for a settlement and discharge from liability as executor on the basis of the claim made by him in said account. On his death it was still pending, by virtue of the agreement of the parties, and it was the duty of Hudson’s administrator to obtain the decree of approval and allowance of his final account as executor of Harriet L. Porter’s will. It would have been proper to require Hudson's administrator to settle the accounts of his intestate as executor. The order to produce a substitute for the account filed by Isaac Hudson, although founded on the erroneous view that the duty to do it devolved on Mattie Jarnagin, rather than Hudson’s administrator, was harmless, since inquiry was permitted into the state of the account. If the order had been that Hudson’s administrator should produce and file a copy of the account, the result could not have been different from that attained by the course pursued. He would have answered the rule by saying he knew nothing of the matter or he would have presented what he regarded as the real state of the account, whereby no indebtedness from his intestate would appear to exist, and Mattie Jarnagin would have been driven to her exceptions to the account thus presented, and the issue would thus have been made as to whether it was “just and true.”
We dissent from the view of the Chancellor that the final account of Hudson* executor, was prima facie correct, and
Decree accordingly.