52 Pa. 370 | Pa. | 1866
The opinion of the court was delivered, October 17th 1866, by
It is material to bear in mind in this case, that the widow and heirs are not seeking to recover property of the estate without letters of administration. Ordinarily this cannot be done. The proposed testimony raises a very different question, viz.: that the cattle, for which this suit was brought, were obtained by the defendant in exchange for a horse; the interest of the estate in the cattle having been purchased from the widow and heirs by his vendor, thfere being no debts whatever against the estate, and no administration. This it is contended conferred title to the cattle upon him, which could not be disturbed unless debts appeared.
No doubt the personal estate of a decedent vests in the administrator, but in trust for creditors and heirs or legatees. The mere legal estate passes to the administrator, the equitable descends upon the parties entitled to distribution. If there be no creditors the heirs have a complete equity in the property, and if they choose, instead of taking letters of administration, to distribute it by arrangement made and executed amongst themselves, where is the principle which forbids it ?
The parties to such an arrangement executed would be for ever equitably estopped from disturbing it, as amongst themselves, upon
We do not knoAV whether this was a case of mere intermeddling or not by the plaintiff below, but it looks like it. He was a stranger to the decedent and the heirs, we are told; and although his letters of administration are valid until revoked, certainly he was not a party Avhom the law regards as entitled in the first instance to administration. If those entitled first to administration, the widow and heirs in succession, preferred a settlement of their OAvn affairs without going into the Orphans’ Court, and could do it Avithout interfering with the rights of others, the law did not forbid it, and a stranger might well have afforded to forbear interference, the effect of which was to disturb an amicable family arrangement.
The other assignments of error are to the charge — to which there does not seem, by the paper-books, to have been any exception. Not appearing there, we ought to take it that there was no exception taken. The rules of court require that all exceptions intended to be insisted on should appear in the paper-books.'
As to the first of these assignments we may remark, however, as the case goes back, that if there was a joint oAvnership between
This is noticed not as a ground of reversal, for the reason already stated, that it was not excepted to, but that error may be avoided in this particular if the case be again tried. If there was no joint ownership of the cattle as between Torrey and Capron, then it was a case of bailment; and unless the offer of the defendant to prove a purchase from the widow and heirs be fully made out as already noticed, the plaintiff would be entitled to recover, without something different from what thus far appears is interposed.
Judgment reversed, and venire de novo awarded.