37 N.J. Eq. 240 | N.J. Super. Ct. App. Div. | 1883
This is an appeal from a decree of the Monmouth orphans court, upon exceptions to the final account of George Middleton and Henry Larrison, two of the administrators of Tobias Polhemus, deceased. The intestate died in March, 1879. The except-ant and appellant is John Polhemus, one of his sons. John
The record shows that the orphans court, in restating the account, adopted a method which renders it unnecessary to consider the question as to the real amount of the purchases by John and George. As to that amount there is some contrariety of evidence. The court, in restating, charged the accountants with the balance which the account as presented by them showed, and debited them with the items for which they prayed allowance in connection with the exceptant’s goods. As the account then stood the accountants were charged with the appraised value of the goods (in the inventory), and with all the items of allowance which they had claimed in respect thereto. The court then credited them with the appraised value of those goods, $2,136.-60, and taking the amount for which the goods were sold by them, $1,196.22, from the amount of the judgment in the trover suit, $1,715.22, credited them with the balance, $519. So, it may be seen, the method of statement adopted rendered the question as to whether the purchases of the exceptant and George amounted to $900 or not, of no importance. And that method is correct, if the difference between the appraised value of the goods in question and the amount of the judgment in trover was properly allowed to the accounting administrators. There is, it may be remarked, no evidence that there was, in the judgment, any allowance of damages beyond the value of the property at the time of taking it. In the record (p. 61) there is what appears to be an admission that, in the trover suit, the exceptants made no claim for damages beyond the value of the goods at the time when they were taken. But, however that may be, if the conduct of the accountants in selling the goods was fair and judicious, and purely in the interest of the estate, they are entitled to indemnity from the estate. The property in question was, at the intestate’s death, apparently in his possession. It was, with the exceptant’s knowledge, and without any protest or objection on his part, taxed, after he became the owner of it, as the property of the intestate, who gave it in to the assessor as his, and paid the tax upon it as his accordingly. The exceptant derived
The taxes assessed on the intestate’s real estate after his death,, paid by the accountants, are not a proper charge against the estate. By the exceptions objection was made to the payment of' taxes assessed on the land in Upper Freehold township, in Monmouth county, and the land in Ocean county, for the years 1879 and 1880. The exceptions on these subjects were overruled. They ought to have been allowed. As there was no exception to the payment of the taxes of 1881 the appeal as to those items cannot be sustained.
Nor was there any exception to the school tax paid by Mr. Middleton.
The decree of the orphans court will be reversed in respect to the $519 and the taxes paid on real estate in 1879 and 1880, but in those respects alone. The costs of the appeal will be paid out of the estate, but no allowance of counsel fees will be made toeithér side.