Morgan v. Hamlet

• Citation: 5 S.Ct. 583,28 L.Ed. 1013,113 U.S. 449
• Parties: MORGAN, Adm'r, etc., and others v. HAMLET and others
• Decision Date: 02 March 1885
• Court: United States Supreme Court

113 U.S. 449

5 S.Ct. 583

28 L.Ed. 1013

MORGAN, Adm'r, etc., and others v. HAMLET and others.

March 2, 1885.

S. S. Phillips, for appellant.

U. M. Rose, for appellees.

MATTHEWS, J.

This is a bill in equity filed by the appellants, September 3, 1879. The complainants are the administrator de donis non of Samuel D. Morgan, deceased, and the children and heirs at law and widow of the intestate, citizens of North Carolina. The female defendants are the children and heirs at law of John G. Morgan, deceased, sued with their husbands, and all citizens of Arkansas. The case alleged in the bill is substantially as follows:

In 1860 a partnership was formed between Samuel D. Morgan and John G. Morgan, who were brothers, the former advancing the means the latter being bankrupt—for stocking and cultivating a cotton plantation in Arkansas, purchased in the name of the firm, but paid for only in part. Samuel D. Morgan continued to reside in North Carolina. John G. Morgan lived on the plantation in Arkansas, and personally conducted its operations. This he did during several years, including the year 1865, when the plantation was sold, under judicial proceed- ings, to pay the unpaid purchase money. Samuel D. Morgan died in January, 1864. It is alleged that large profits were made by John G. Morgan, and particularly that after the death of his brother he continued in possession of the partnership property, conducted its business, and made profits amounting to twenty thousand dollars. He rendered no account at any time of the business, and made no settlement of the partnership affairs, but it is charged that he converted the whole of the partnership property and profits to his own use. John G. Morgan, in 1865, took out letters of administration on the estate of Samuel D. Morgan, in Ashley county, Arkansas, in which the plantation and partnership property were situated. The administration was closed in 1872. John G. Morgan died in 1875, the defendants, his heirs at law, having come into possession of the property in his possession at his decease, more than sufficient to satisfy the claim of the complainants. Of the complainants, Samuel T. Morgan became of age September 8, 1876, and William W. Morgan in May, 1878. They never had a guardian, and allege their ignorance of the frauds charged to have been practiced against them by John G. Morgan until in 1879. The prayer of the bill is for an account, etc.

The answer of the defendants, though admitting the fact of such a partnership as alleged, denies that any profits were made, and denies all the allegations of fraud. It also shows that John G. Morgan died in April, 1875, leaving him surviving Emma S. Morgan, his widow, and the defendants, Alice R. Hamlet and Emma G. Abell, and Lula Morgan, an infant, his only children; that letters of administration were issued on his estate by the probate court of Chicot county, Arkansas, in which he lived at the time of his death, on August 6, 1875, to his widow, who acted as administratrix of his estate until October 13, 1875, when she resigned, and the defendant John C. Hamlet was appointed by the same court administrator de bonis non, and qualified and acted as such. And it is relied on as a defense that the demands made in the bill were not authenticated and presented to the administratrix or the administrator de bonis non of John G. Morgan, Deceased, according to law, within two years of the granting of letters of administration on...