Allen v. Allen's Adm'r

• Decision Date: 31 January 1858
• Citation: 26 Mo. 327
• Parties: ALLEN, Respondent, v. ALLEN'S ADMINISTRATOR, Appellant.
• Court: Missouri Supreme Court

26 Mo. 327

ALLEN, Respondent,

v.ALLEN'S ADMINISTRATOR, Appellant.

Supreme Court of Missouri.

January Term, 1858.

1. Quere, Whether the admissions of an administrator, a party to a suit, are admissible in evidence against the estate of which he is the administrator.

2. If the administrator be a distributee his admissions are evidence.

Appeal from Callaway Circuit Court.

Samuel Allen presented to the Callaway county court for allowance a demand against the estate of Samuel J. Allen, deceased. Adams, the administrator, was the husband of the widow of said Samuel J. Allen. The demand presented was the balance of an account of the sale of certain slaves belonging to Samuel Allen. The balance claimed was $770 with interest. In the account as presented, however, the interest was not calculated and placed at the foot of the account. Certain admissions of Adams were introduced in evidence, for which see below in the opinion of the court.

Hardin, for appellant.

I. Judgment can not be rendered for a greater amount of damages than respondent claimed in his account. (5 Mo. 422; 1 Mo. 96; 3 Mo. 39.) The court below committed error in its action upon the instructions. The statement of the administrator of the estate was not competent evidence. (2 Const. Rep. 757; 12 Wheat. 565; 7 Conn. 172; 6 Johns. Ch. 372.)

Jones, for respondent.

I. The admissions made by a party to a suit are competent evidence, whether the party stands upon the record in an individual or representative capacity. The 25th section of article 2d of the administration law allowing an administrator to be examined as a witness in favor of the estate, does not affect the common law rule of evidence allowing the admissions of parties to a suit to be given in evidence against them. In this case Adams was also interested in the estate as distributee, having married the widow of Samuel J. Allen, deceased. (1 Greenleaf's Ev. § 171, 179.)

II. In presenting a demand to the county court for allowance against an estate no technical form is necessary. The affidavit and account filed sufficiently apprised the administrator that the claimant asked not only for seven hundred and seventy dollars, but also for interest. (Mills v. Bank of U. S. 11 Wheat. 441.) There is no error in the instructions as given and refused.

NAPTON, Judge, delivered the opinion of the court.

There is nothing, in our opinion, in the objection made to the form of the account. Although the calculation of the interest is not made and the sum total placed at the foot of the account, the affidavit shows that both principal and interest were demanded. The judgment is for the principal and interest in conformity to the claim.

The question in relation to the declarations or statements of the administrator, which were given in evidence, is one of more difficulty. The jury were directed by the court to disregard all these statements, except such as were statements of facts within the administrator's knowledge. The declarations and acts testified to were, that the administrator handed to the witness (who was an attorney) the account sued on and the letters read in evidence, and requested him to present them to the county court for allowance; that, being administrator, he could not do so with propriety; that he thought the letters showed the account overpaid, but he admitted that plaintiff was an honest man, and that the account of sales set out in the claim was correct. These statements, except so much of them as relate to the source from which the account and letters were obtained, do not of themselves convey any information to the jury as to the administrator's knowledge of their truth, which was the criterion furnished the jury by which they were to be received or discarded. The jury might have no difficulty, under the instructions of the court, in considering the statements relative to the incompatibility of the claim with the letters, and in relation to the honesty of the claimant, as mere expressions of opinion and therefore excluded from their consideration. But how would they regard the statement relative to the correctness of the account of sales? It did not appear whether the administrator had any personal knowledge on this subject or not, or if he had any, it did not appear how he had obtained his information, or at what time. Such a declaration coming from a mere trustee ought to have no weight with a jury, and very likely in this case it had none. The court may have regarded it in this light and understood it as excluded, but it is unsafe as a general practice to submit a mass of testimony of this character to a jury, with a rule by which they are to separate for themselves the good from the bad, the competent from the incompetent evidence. It is impossible to say what influence the opinion of the administrator in relation to the integrity of the claimant may have exerted upon the jury. What things are to be regarded as facts and what opinions is sometimes a matter of very nice discrimination, and the court had better make the discrimination than leave it to be made by the jury.

Whether the admissions of an administrator are evidence against the estate in suits wherein he is a party, is a question not probably of much practical importance in this...