105 Ala. 460 | Ala. | 1894
It is well settled, and we do not understand it to be controverted in this case, that a bill by legatees or distributees for the removal of the administration of an estate into the chancery court need not assign any ground or special cause for equitable interposition. The settlement of estates of decedents is within the original jurisdiction of courts of equity, and our statutes conferring jurisdiction in that regard upon courts of probate, while they require executors and administrators to make settlements in those courts, unless some special ground necessitating the exercise of the larger powers and jurisdiction of chancery is shown, yet do not operate to divest or narrow the jurisdiction of courts of chancery, nor to clog its exercise by any conditions whatever, upon the reasonable invocation of the legatees or distributees of a decedent’s estate. — 3 Brick. Dig., 334, §§ 61, 62, 63; Harland v. Person, 93 Ala. 273; Cary v. Simmons, 87 Ala. 524.
It is equally well settled that, after the probate court has taken jurisdiction of the estate of a decedent for the special'purpose of a final settlement of the pending administration, there can be no removal of the administration into the chancery court even at the instance of the legatees or distributees, unless some ground for exclusive equity cognizance is shown — unless some fact is averred because of which the powers of the probate court are inadequate and a resort to chancery is necessary. Authorities supra.
No special ground of equity jurisdiction is averred in the present bill exhibited by the heirs and distributees of the estate of Wm. M. Ligón, deceased, for the removal of the administration thereof into the chancery court — no fact is averred necessitating the invocation of chancery jurisdiction. Whether the complainants are entitled to the relief they pray — the removal of the estate into chancery and its final settlement there — depends, therefore, upon the inquiry whether the jurisdiction of the probate court for the purposes of final settlement had attached and was in exercise at the time of bill filed. The status of the administration at the time in question was
In Gamble v. Jordan, et al., 54 Ala. 432, it is held that this jurisdiction is called into exercise, so as to cut off the invocation of chancery jurisdiction in the absence of special equities, when the administrator files his accounts and vouchers for a final settlement and a day is appointed for the settlement. And in James et al. v. Faulk et al., 54 Ala. 184, it is said that' the administration must be l'emoved into chancery at the instance of a legatee at any time be
We have deemed it proper to express the foregoing views, hoping thereby to facilitate this cause in the court below, notwithstanding our further conclusion that there was no decree in this case from which the present attempted appeal would lie, and the consequent necessity we are under to dismiss the appeal. There was indeed no decree except on the demurrers, and the time for appealing from that decree separately had lapsed before this appeal was taken. The chancellor in effect held that the complainants would be entitled to the relief prayed in the event they should have an administrator de bonis non appointed and made a party to the bill. This was not and could not be a final decree even if it be taken as having gone on to declare the precise relief that should be granted upon the appointment and coming in of the administrator de bonis non. And the appeal must, therefore, be dismissed.
Appeal dismissed.