179 A. 823 | Conn. | 1935
The defendant LaFlamme was appointed administrator upon the estate of Rose LaFlamme by the Court of Probate for the district of Bristol, accepted the appointment and filed the bond, upon which this action was brought, with the defendant Indemnity Company as surety. He filed an inventory and appraisal and a supplementary inventory and appraisal of the estate and proceeded with its settlement. August 16th, 1933, he filed an account in which he stated as receipts the property which had been inventoried, with accrued interest, and listed the claims paid. The account ended "Balance for distribution to Rosilda Cormier $1153.28, Charles LaFlamme $1153.27." The account was accepted by the Court of Probate on August 23d 1933. LaFlamme distributed the balance shown in the account to Rosilda Cormier and himself in accordance with the statement contained in it, they being children of Rose LaFlamme, but he filed no return of these payments. He made them in good faith, without knowledge of any other heirs of the estate.
Thereafter Frederick Joseph Carter appealed to the Superior Court from the order allowing the account. The court found that he was the son and heir of Rose LaFlamme and as such entitled to share equally in the *180 distribution of her estate and it vacated and set aside the probate decree. Carter then applied to the Court of Probate for a hearing upon the final account of LaFlamme as administrator, the court set a day for that hearing, but LaFlamme did not appear. Thereupon the trial court removed him and appointed Louis Y. Gaberman administrator d. b. n. As a result of proceedings subsequently taken upon the application of the administrator d. b. n., the Court of Probate made an order in which it found that LaFlamme had failed to account for $551.93, money received by him upon certain insurance policies, and had failed to pay certain expenses of administration, amounting to $192.87, and also that, after paying the charges, there should be a balance of $2665.61 for distribution, one-third to each of Rose LaFlamme's children; and it ordered LaFlamme to pay to the plaintiff as administrator d. b. n. the sum of $1081.40 in order that the charges it found due might be paid and a proper distribution among the heirs be effectuated. This action is brought upon the probate bond filed by LaFlamme, on behalf of the administrator d. b. n. to recover the amount ordered by the Court of Probate to be paid by him and from a judgment for the defendants the plaintiff has appealed.
The defendant Indemnity Company alone appears in this court and we shall hereafter refer to it as the defendant. It does not contend that LaFlamme was not guilty of a breach of his duty as administrator in failing to account for the insurance money received or that the payment of the balance appearing upon the account filed, in disregard of Carter's rights, was legal; nor does it dispute the right of the administrator d. b. n. in a proper action to recover from LaFlamme the amount of the administration charges found by the Court of Probate to be due. Its defense to the action *181 is that the order of the Court of Probate was directed against LaFlamme as an individual and not in his representative capacity, that at the time the order was made he was not holding the insurance money in his capacity as administrator, and that therefore his failure to obey the order was not a breach of his duty as administrator within the terms of the bond; and secondly that, even if this be not so, LaFlamme is not obliged to make restitution, because of § 4780 of the General Statutes, which provides as follows: "Whenever any person, acting as . . . administrator, . . . shall make payments . . . under or pursuant to an order of a court of probate having jurisdiction, the person making such payment . . . in good faith, and before an appeal shall have been taken from such order, shall not be liable, or in any way holden, for the money so paid, . . . although the order, under or by virtue of which such payment . . . shall have been made, shall afterward be reversed, vacated or set aside."
Section 4963 of the General Statutes provides that "Any court of probate, after the removal of any fiduciary and the appointment of his successor, may enforce the delivery of any estate held by the former, by virtue of his original appointment, to his successor in the same manner as a court of equity might do." The proceeds of the insurance policies were assets of the estate of Rose LaFlamme, as were the other funds held and disbursed by LaFlamme. Neither his failure to inventory or account for the former nor his improper payment of a part of the estate to himself as distributee could destroy their character as such assets.Peoples Bank Trust Co. v. Seydel,
Under our probate practice the ascertainment of the heirs of an estate and the ordering of a distribution *183
requires an order made after due notice, distinct from or in addition to the allowance of a final account; General Statutes, § 4977; Mack's Appeal,
There is error, the judgment is reversed and the trial court directed to enter judgment for the plaintiff.
In this opinion the other judges concurred.