121 P. 531 | Wyo. | 1912
Lead Opinion
This action was commenced in the district court of Sheridan County by Clara E. Parker, defendant in error as plaintiff, against the plaintiff in error as defendant, to recover from the latter as surety upon a guardian’s bond for an alleged default of the guardian. Upon issue joined the case was tried to the court, a jury being waived, and the court found for and gave judgment in favor of Clara E. Parker and against the company for the sum of $974.50 and interest thereon at eight per cent, per annum from July 14, 1908, and costs of suit. The company brings the case here on error.
An amended petition was filed to which the defendant demurred 'upon the ground that it did not state facts' sufficient to constitute a cause of action. The demurrer was overruled and such ruling is here assigned as error.
It is alleged in the petition that the plaintiff in error is and was at all times mentioned therein a corporation duly organized and existing under and by virtue of the laws of the State of Maryland. That one George A. Marks upon his own application made in July, 1900, to the district court of Custer County in the State of Montana, was appointed guardian of the estates and person of Clara E. Marks, the defendant in error, who has since married and is now Clara. E. Parker, Jennie M. Marks and James R. Marks, minors, who were then residents of and had property situate in that county; that on July 7, 1900, he qualified in pursuance of the order by taking the required oath and giving the bond which was duly approved in the amount of $4800, fixed and required by the order and conditioned that he would faithfully execute his trust according to law, and on the same day letters of guardianship were issued to him and he entered upon his duties as such guardian. Thereafter the said Marks wag by the court required to give a new guardian’s bond in the same amount which was accordingly done and the bond here in suit with plaintiff in erfor as surety was executed on April 17, 1902, approved and accepted in said court on June 28, 1902, and the sureties oh
§7760. “Before the order appointing any person guardian under this Chapter takes effect, and before letters issue, the court or judge must require of such person a bond to the minor with sufficient sureties, to be approved by the judge, and in such sum as he shall order, conditioned that the guardian will faithfully execute the duties of his trust according to law, and the following conditions shall form a part of such bond without being expressed therein.
1. To make an inventory .of all the estate, real and personal, of his .ward, that comes to his possession or knowledge, and to return the same within such time as the court or judge may order.
2. To dispose of and manage the estate according to law and for the best interest of the ward, and faithfully to discharge his trust in relation thereto, and also in relation to the care, custody and education of the ward.
3. To render an account on oath of the property, estate and moneys of the ward in his hands and all the proceeds or interest derived therefrom, and of the management and disposition of the same, within three months after his appointment, and at such other times as the court or judge directs, and at the expiration of his trust to settle his accounts with the court or judge, or with the ward if he be of full age, or his legal representatives, and to pay over and deliver all the estate, moneys and effects remaining in his hands, or due from him on such settlement to the person who is lawfully entitled thereto. Upon filing the bond, duly approved, letters of guardianship must issue to the person appointed. In form the letters of guardianship must be substantially the same as letters of administration, and the oath of the guardian must be indorsed thereon that he will perform the duties of his office as such guardian according to law.”
*45 §7810. “The court or judge may require a new bond to be given by a guardian whenever such court or judge deems it necessary, and may discharge the existing sureties from further liability, after due notice given .as such court or judge may direct, when it shall appear that no injury can result therefrom to those interested in the estate.”
§7811. “Every bond given by a guardian must be filed and preserved in the office of the clerk of the District Court, and in case of a breach of condition thereof, may be prosecuted for the use and benefit of the ward, or of any person interested in the estate.”
That the condition of an official bond urider the laws of Montana is and has been at all times herein mentioned applicable to guardians’ bonds, to-wit:
§384. “The condition of an official bond must be that the principal will well, truly and faithfully perform all official duties then required of him by law, and also all such additional duties as may be imposed on- him by any law of the state, and that he will account for and pay over and deliver to the person or officer entitled to receive the same, all moneys or other property that may come into-his hands as such officer.” It is further provided: §393. “Whenever an official bond does not contain the substantial matter or conditions required by law or there are any defects in the approval or filing thereof, it is not void so as to discharge such officer and sureties; but they are equitably bound to the state or party interested and the state or such party may, by action in any court of competent jurisdiction, suggest the defect-in the bond, approval, or filing, and recover the proper and equitable demand or damages from such officer and the persons who intended to become and were included as sureties in such bond.”
That on August 7, 1907, the said George A. Marks as such guardian entered into possession and assumed control of the estates of said minors which consisted of cattle and horses, title to an undivided one-third interest being in plaintiff as ward and that the value of her interest was $800;
It is here urged that in order to maintain the action it is necessary to allege and prove as a condition precedent that the court wherein the guardian was appointed, — that is to say the district court of Custer County, Montana — had settled the guardian’s accounts and a balance in favor of the ward found and adjudged due such ward from the guardian. As will be obsérved the guardian died in and leaving an estate in Rosebud County, Montana, and in which county letters of administration were applied for and the district court of that county duly appointed the guardian’s widow as administratrix and that she so qualified and entered upon her duties as such. The jurisdiction in probate of the district court of Rosebud County of the estate of the deceased guardian is alleged. Such jurisdiction includes the adjustment of accounts in favor of and against such estate. The disallowance of defendant in error’s claim by the adminis-tratrix was a condition precedent and gave to the former the right to commence suit thereon in that court to establish the same as a charge against the estate. The suit in the district court of that county was instituted and tried upon the issues made by the pleadings and upon these issues an accounting between the administratrix and the defendant in error arising out of the guardianship matter was necessarily involved and had. The guardian was dead and his personal representative was not required to go into the courts of Custer.
Exceptions were taken to all these rulings and they may be considered together. The case was tried at the regular June A. D. 1909 term of the District Court of Sheridan County on September 20 and 21 of that year, and on the last mentioned day the judgment here involved was rendered. Assuming that the motion for a new trial was filed within the time allowed by statute (Sec. 4603, Comp. Stat. 1910) it was not ruled upon until the following December 1909 term of that court when it was overruled and on application of the plaintiff in. error it was given to and including March 15, 1-910, within which to reduce its exceptions to writing and present its bill of exceptions for allowance. The bill was presented, allowed and signed on March 15, 1910, and ordered to be made a part of the record of the then regular December A. D. 1909 term. By section 4594, Comp. Stat. 1910, “An exception is an objection taken to a decision of the court upon a matter of law.” Sec. 4595 is as follows: “A party objecting to the decision must except at the time the decision is made; and time may be given to reduce the exception to writing, but not beyond the first day of the next succeeding term.” It is here conceded that the exceptions were properly taken at the time but it is contended that they nor either of them have been preserved in the record so as to entitle them to consideration here.
The question thus raised is whether a motion for new trial filed at the term when the trial was had and judgment
6. It is also urged that the sureties on the bond which was given by the deceased guardian prior to .the one in suit should have been made parties to this suit. Upon the allegations and proof the devastavit occurred subsequent to the giving and approval of the bond in suit; and the order allowing and approving the bond here sued on declared that it was so allowed and filed in lieu of the former bond and that the sureties on such bond were discharged and exonerated from further liability. It was not necessary therefore to make them parties. Further than that the objection was waived by failing to raise it by demurrer or answer.
The judgment will be affirmed.
Affirmed.
Concurrence Opinion
(Concurring.) The questions involved are important, and the one relating to the jurisdiction of a district court of this state to entertain the action at all does not seem to have been decided in any case presenting the same facts, but there are several reported cases which by analogy are in point, and suggest the principle upon which the jurisdiction may and ought to be sustained. I desire, therefore, to record as briefly as possible some of the reasons for my concurrence,, though I do not understand that my views differ in any material respects from those of either of my associates, but believe that we are of one mind as to the controlling reasons for the conclusions announced. What I shall say is intended to apply also to the case of the same plaintiff in error against Ira W. Nash, as guardian of Jennie Mabel Simpson, so far as the matters discussed are involved in that case, and will to that extent explain my concurrence in the opinion and conclusion therein.
The objection .to the jurisdiction of the court to entertain the action presents, I think, the principal question in the case. Upon an examination of the authorities, intended to be exhaustive, and a consideration of the principles relating to the subject as applicable to the facts of the case, we a're all convinced that the objection to jurisdiction cannot be sustained upon any reasonable ground. First, as to the necessity for a previous accounting, and the general rule requiring an accounting and settlement of the guardian’s accounts in the court where he was appointed as a condition precedent to an action upon his bond. The theory upon which that rule is based is said to be that it is the policy of the law to hold the remedy on the official bond in a court of law, subject to the action of the tribunal established to adjust the accounts of the party who by his default is alleged to have forfeited his bond. (21 Cyc. 242.) And it follows the rule early applied to suits upon the bonds of executors and .administrators. The rule was held not to be applicable to a guardian’s bond in Call v. 'Ruffin, 1 Call. Va. 333; but by the weight of authority it seems to be now held to apply
Second, as to the right to maintain the action in this state. It does 'not appear that the laws of Montana provide a special remedy on the bond or a special proceeding for enforcing the liability thereon, which would exclude the general jurisdiction,of a court of law or equity. The district court in which the suit was brought has full and complete law and equity powers; and in this state the distinctions between actions at law and suits in equity, and the forms of all such actions and suits formerly existing are abolished, and but one form of action is substituted called a “civil action.” The district court, therefore, has jurisdiction of the subject matter, unless jurisdiction of an action of this kind upon the facts exists only in the courts of the state wherein the guardian was appointed. The wards removed to this state, the plaintiff here is of age, and a guardian was appointed in the state by the proper court for the minor ward represented in the other case. Had the guardian also lived and removed to this state with the property of the wards or its proceeds, or before or after coming here had sold the property and converted the proceeds to his own use, it is well settled by the authorities that he could have been sued and compelled to account in the courts of this state. (21 Cyc. 272; McNamara v. Dwyer, 7 Paige Ch.
McNamara v. Dwyer, supra, is recognized as the'leading case on this subject. In that case it was alleged that Dwyer had been appointed administrator of an estate in Ireland, that he had converted a large amount of the personal estate into money, brought it into the State of New York, and misapplied it in private speculation. The suit was by an heir for an accounting and .distribution of the estate. In the opinion by Chancellor Walworth sustaining the right to maintain the suit in New York, it was .said: “Certainly, if a guardian appointed in one of our sister states should come into this state with the property of his ward, or after he had squandered the same, or appropriated it to his own use, in the state where he received his appointment, there could'be no reasonable doubt as to the jurisdiction of the court; to compel him to account for and pay over to his ward what
Moore v. Flood, supra, was a case brought against a guardian and his surety by the wards for an accounting-under the following circumstances: Hood was appointed guardian by a court in North Carolina, and there applied for and obtained an order of sale of the property of the wards, and sold the same. The jurisdiction of the court in South Carolina to entertain the action was challenged. The court by Wardlow, Chancellor, said: “The objection to the jurisdiction of the court, presented by the third ground of appeal, lacks even plausibility. The suit is for account by wards against their guardian and his surety, who had also been executors of the.estate from which the property of the plaintiffs now in controversy was derived; and account is one of the most general heads of jurisdiction in this court, and most commonly exercised, as in the present instance, in suits by beneficiaries against trustees. It is immaterial that the trustee here was invested with his powers and duties by a foreign tribunal; for surely his fiduciary relation is not terminated by removal of himself and the trust funds beyond the limits of the state in which he was appointed. It would disgrace the courts of any civilized country to afford immunity to a trustee who fled to their jurisdiction that he might embezzle the funds committed to his trust. This suit is not on the bond of defendant as the gist, such as an action of debt, which can be prosecuted only in the court of common pleas. It is a bill for account, in which the bond is used merely as collateral evidence of the defendant’s liability.”
The case of Leverich v. Adams, supra, involved the following facts: The plaintiff sued as curator or guardian of a
In Cutrer v. Tennessee, supra, the suit was brought in Mississippi to enforce a liability upon an administrator’s bond given in Tennessee, for an alleged conversion of funds by the administrator. The court say: “It appears from the bill in' this case, which bill stands confessed by the demurrer, that the administrator is insolvent, that he resides in this state and brought the funds into this state and converted it to his own use, that two solvent sureties on the bond live in this state, and the third surety lives in Tennessee. Whether this third surety is solvent or insolvent does not appear. The complainant also resides in this state. Under these circumstances we have no hesitancy in declaring that the courts of this state are vested with full jurisdiction to entertain the suit to recover this fund, and there is a multitude of authority to this effect. To hold otherwise, as is said in many of the cases that we shall herein cite, would often result in a total failure of justice, a result always to be shunned by the courts.”
It being the well settled rule, then, that if the guardian had lived and removed to this state he could have been called to account in the courts of this state for the property of the ward converted by him to his own úse, there appears to be no substantial reason for holding that a different rule must prevail when he is dead as to a suit brought against the surety on his bond who resides here or is amenable to the process of our courts. And in Cutrer v. Tennessee, supra, it was held that the same reasons which warrant the suit against the administrator apply to suits against the sureties on his bond.
In the case of Carpenter v. Soloman, (Tex.) 14 S. W. 1074, it was held that upon the termination of the guardianship of a female ward by her marriage, she could sue upon the guardian’s bond in the county of his residence, though he was appointed guardian by the court in another county, and had not been formally discharged by that court. The court say: “Apellant Cora, upon her marriage, was no longer a ward of the appellant Soloman, and could sue him in any court having jurisdiction of the amount for the recovery of money belonging to her, which he had obtained by virtue of said guardianship, without regard to whether or not he had been formally discharged by the court having jurisdiction of said guardianship.” That case is in point here to the extent that it sustains the right to maintain the action upon the guardian’s bond in any court having jurisdiction of an action of that character and of the amount involved; and that it was not necessary to sue in the county where the guardian was appointed. I conclude then upon this question that if the guardian had been alive and resided in this state he and his sureties might have been sued, upon the facts alleged and shown in this case, in this state, in the District Court within the county wherein'jurisdiction of the person could have been properly obtained; arid that the guardian
With reference to the judgment obtained by Mrs. Parker in Rosebud County, Montana, I have this to say. As already stated a showing of a previous, accounting in the court which appointed the guardian or in any other court of the same state was not necessary as preliminary to the right to maintain this action. But the fact that said judgment had been secured against the administratrix of the estate of the deceased guardian was alleged in the petition, and so far as the surety would have been benefited by a previous accounting, it would seem that no more could be insisted upon than was done by establishing the claim against the guardian’s estate through the judgment of a competent court. (21 Cyc. 242.) -The trial court appears to have held the plaintiff bound by that judgment, by limiting her recovery to the amount thereof with interest. I agree that the surety was also bound thereby, to the same extent that it would have been bound by the final result ascertained and declared upon an accounting in the guardianship proceeding, or in a suit against the guardian for the same purpose. But the plaintiff produced other evidence in support of her claim which would have sustained a finding in an amount at least equal to the amount of the judgment.