98 N.Y. 49 | NY | 1885
[EDITORS' NOTE: THIS PAGE CONTAINS HEADNOTES. HEADNOTES ARE NOT AN OFFICIAL PRODUCT OF THE COURT, THEREFORE THEY ARE NOT DISPLAYED.] *52 There was no error in the refusal to admit evidence of the use to which the defendant applied the money which formed the consideration of the notes in suit. No defense upon this branch of the case existed which could make that use material. The letter of defendant's father furnished *53 no foundation for any agreement invalidating the notes; and the other evidence of the declarations of the intestate indicated only that, while he considered the notes valid obligations, he did not intend to enforce them. The deceased, perhaps, meant to give the debt to his son, and discharge it as an act of kindness, but died without carrying that intention into effect.
Nor was there error in holding that the plaintiffs had such title to the notes as enabled them to sue the maker and enforce their collection. It was true that the notes were assets of the estate, and were transferred by the indorsement of the administrator, and the pledgees must be deemed to have known that they were such assets and took them at their peril if the transfer was in any respect a misappropriation. Such is the substance of the rule as declared in Field v. Schieffelin (7 Johns. Ch. 150, 160) where the English and American cases are very fully and carefully considered. But none of the authorities indicate that the debtor, defending solely in that character, can raise the question. They concede that the legal title passes, but subject to the equities of those interested in the estate, who may set it aside under certain circumstances, and reclaim for the use of the estate the assets misappropriated, or their proceeds. But even in such case, as a general rule, the payment by the debtor to the assignee holding the title would be good, and an answer to any further claim, and he has no right to bring into controversy relations or equities with which he has no connection. (Sullivan v. Bonesteel,
It is further insisted that the sale by the defendant of his interest in the estate of his father to his brother Jerome, who was the administrator, operated to free the defendant from any liability upon these notes. The transfer was by deed. The property sold was described as "all my right, title and interest of every name and kind in the estate or property of Dann C. Squires, deceased, including all my right, title and interest in the hereinafter mentioned several pieces and parcels of real estate; also all my right and interest in all the personal property of the estate of said Dann C. Squires, including my distributive share in said personal property of said Dann C. Squires' estate." Outside of this written transfer, evidence was received under defendant's objection of a cotemporaneous parol agreement of defendant to pay these notes. The defendant denied any such agreement, and if the evidence of it was admissible, a question of fact was raised which ought to have gone to the jury. But the courts below assumed that no such parol agreement existed, and we must assume the same thing, and confine our conclusions to the effect of the written transfer, disregarding the alleged parol agreement entirely and treating it as wholly immaterial.
Somebody was required to pay these notes. They belonged to the estate and constituted a part of its assets, and it was the duty of the administrator to collect them. Either the defendant, as maker, or the administrator was bound to pay them, and no arrangement between the defendant and Jerome Squires, acting in his individual capacity, could release the defendant from his liability to the estate. Unless, therefore, Jerome Squires in some manner assumed their payment, they remained a debt payable to the administrator by the defendant. The written transfer contains no such assumption. Nothing in its terms refers to these notes or casts their burden upon the purchaser. *56 The deed expressly transfers to Jerome the defendant's distributive share. That share was his proportionate part of the amount realized from all the assets after payment of debts and expenses, and its transfer implies collection of all the assets good and collectible. It is quite true that the administrator had the right to apply the notes upon the defendant's distributive share, and that his assignee could not resist such an application. But in that event the purchaser of the distributive share would have got only part of it from the administrator and the defendant himself would have got the other part, and it would be only a portion of the entire distributive share sold which the purchaser would get and the seller deliver. But in such a case, whatever the administrator's right, he is not bound to exercise it if the debt is otherwise collectible. Instead of waiting to make the offset he may sue upon and collect the notes, or sell them to an assignee who can thus sue and collect. It is no defense to the debtor that he is also one of the next of kin and upon a final settlement may be entitled to receive from the estate a sum larger than his debt. The sale, therefore, by defendant of his interest in the personal estate, "including his distributive share," implied that he must pay his own debt as going in part to make up that share, and since Jerome Squires in no manner assumed or agreed to pay it, the effect of the deed was not to discharge the defendant's liability.
The judgment should be affirmed, with costs.
All concur.
Judgment affirmed.