Blue v. Watson
Decision Date | 10 May 1882 |
Citation | 59 Miss. 619 |
Court | Mississippi Supreme Court |
Parties | J. D. BLUE et al. v. N. R. C. WATSON et al., and ELIZA DAKIN v. N. R. C. WATSON et al |
Appeal and cross appeal from the Chancery Court of Lincoln County Hon. H. S. Van Eaton, Chancellor.
Decree reversed, demurrer sustained and bill dismissed.
R. H Thompson, for the appellants, J. D. Blue et al.
The court below erred in overruling the demurrers to the bill of interpleader. An administrator cannot interplead the estate. He is an interested party. He is constituted by the court a trustee to look after and protect the interest of the estate for the benefit of creditors and heirs. He will not be allowed to claim that he has no interest in property claimed by the estate, or to which the estate has a claim. It is contrary to the policy of the law. Adams v. Dixon, 19 Ga. 513.
A. C McNair, for the same appellants.
If this is a strict bill of interpleader, it is fatally defective, as it does not show that the defendants claim the same debt, nor does it show that the complainant is a mere stakeholder. There is no affidavit annexed to the bill that it is not filed by collusion. In fact, without an enumeration of the various requirements of a bill of interpleader, it is sufficient to say that this bill is fatally defective. Yarborough v. Thompson, 3 S. & M. 291; Browning v. Watkins, 10 S. & M. 482; Anderson v Wilkinson, 10 S. & M. 601; Snodgrass v. Butler, 54 Miss. 45; 4 Wait's Actions and Defences, 149-159; 2 Dan. Ch. Prac. 1560, 1573; 2 Story Eq. Jur. §§ 800 824. It is, however, claimed that the bill is not strictly a bill of interpleader, but is a bill in the nature of a bill of interpleader. The difference between the two is this, that in a bill of interpleader the complainant claims no relief against either of the defendants, but only asks that he may be at liberty to pay the money or deliver the property into court and be relieved of all further responsibility to either party in reference thereto; while in a bill in the nature of a bill of interpleader the complainant seeks to establish some right of his own, either legal or equitable, connected with the property or fund in question, or to obtain some affirmative relief for himself in a matter in which he is individually interested. Tested by these rules this is neither a bill of interpleader nor a bill in the nature of a bill of interpleader. 2 Story Eq. Jur. § 824.
J. B Deason, for the appellant, Eliza Dakin.
The final decree is erroneous only in ordering part of the purchase-money to be paid to the estate of John Watson, and this court should render a decree ordering all of it to be paid to Eliza Dakin.
Sessions & Cassedy, for the appellee, N. R. C. Watson.
1. The essentials of a strict bill of interpleader are inapplicable, because this bill is not of that character. It is a bill in the nature of a bill of interpleader. Such a bill will lie by a party in interest to ascertain and establish his own rights where there are conflicting rights between third persons. Parks v. Jackson, 11 Wend. 442; 2 Story Eq. Jur. § 824. The complainant in this case brings the conflicting claimants of the purchase-money into court to enable him to relieve his real estate of the equitable mortgage by payment to the proper claimant.
2. Executors and trustees by bill in the nature of a bill of interpleader may take the advice of a chancery court on questions connected with the discharge of their duties. Crosby v. Mason, 32 Conn. 482. N. R. C. Watson, as administrator of John Watson, was trustee for the creditors and the heirs. He could not hasten a settlement of his liability by suit, for he could not sue himself, and it was not proper or to be expected that the administration of the estate of John Watson should be kept open indefinitely to await suits by all the parties, in order that the matter might be determined in that way. In a note to Adams Eq. 404, it is said that an executor may file a bill in the nature of a bill of interpleader to determine, under a proper construction of the will, whether slaves in his possession are entitled to freedom, making the legatees and next of kin parties. Osborne v. Taylor, 12 Gratt. 117; Crosby v. Mason, 32 Conn. 482.
3. The enlargement of chancery jurisdiction, by entertaining bills in the nature of bills of interpleader and bills of that character, has been wisely done. It advances justice, prevents multiplicity of suits, and hastens the final closing of trust estates. This case is illustrative. By the bill of complaint, three sets of claimants--prospective litigants--are brought into court, and the question is settled as to which class the complainant owes. The question of his liability to account for the same fund as administrator is also settled, and the final closing up of the estate of which he is administrator made possible at once. Multiplicity of suits is avoided, the object of interpleader accomplished, and the correct and safe administration of an estate secured.
N. R C. Watson exhibited the bill in this cause, in the Chancery Court of Lincoln County against the heirs and distributees of John Watson, and against the heirs and distributees of one Nathaniel Watson, and against Mrs. Eliza Dakin, in which he states that he is the administrator of the estate of John Watson, appointed to that office by the said Chancery Court of Lincoln County. That John Watson in his lifetime was the guardian of his brother, Nathaniel Watson, who was a lunatic, and that since the death of John Watson, he as administrator had filed in the Chancery Court of Jefferson County (where the guardianship of said lunatic had been awarded to his intestate) the final account of John Watson as such guardian, and that on such final accounting he as such administrator was found indebted to the heirs of Nathaniel Watson (who had also died) in the sum of six hundred and seventy-five dollars, and a decree was rendered in favor of the said heirs against him as administrator of John Watson for said sum. He states that the estate of his intestate is insufficient to pay the debts due by it, and that his intestate at his death was not the owner of any real estate, and his personal estate consisted of an insignificant amount, unless it should appear on the facts stated in the bill then filed, that he himself was indebted to said estate. These facts as stated by him are as follows. About the year 1859 John Watson had borrowed from his daughter, Mrs. Dakin, the sum of one thousand dollars, none of the principal and but little of the interest of which he had ever paid to her. In 1868 John Watson sold to his son, William A. Watson, a small tract of land for the sum of three hundred dollars, which sum William A. Watson as complainant had been informed, was instructed by John Watson, and had agreed to pay over to Mrs. Dakin on account of the debt due to her from her father. Subsequently the complainant purchased from William A. Watson the land, at the price of six hundred dollars, of which sum he paid in cash to William A. Watson the sum of three hundred dollars, and the balance of the purchase-money he was instructed by William A. Watson, and agreed, to pay to Mrs. Dakin on her said debt against John Watson. The bill further shows that in the year 1869 the complainant purchased from his intestate (who was his father) the other lands then owned by said intestate, the consideration of his purchase being that he should support his mother, the wife of the intestate, during the remainder of her life, and at her death should pay to Mrs. Dakin the sum of five hundred dollars on the debt due to her by the intestate. The complainant further states that his mother has since died, and that he is now prepared to pay the sums due by him on account of the purchase of the two tracts of land, both that bought from his father and that bought from his brother, William A. Watson, that his sister, Mrs. Dakin, asserts her right to both sums, but that the heirs of Nathaniel Watson, in whose favor the decree was rendered by the Chancery Court of Jefferson County against the complainant as administrator of his father, also claim that the fund ought to be accounted for by him as a part of the assets of his intestate's estate, and threaten to sue him and the sureties on his bond as such administrator unless he accounts as such administrator for the same, that he therefore is threatened by two adverse claims to the debt, and is unable to pay the same with safety either to Mrs. Dakin or to the creditors of his intestate's estate. He therefore prays that citation may issue for the heirs of John Watson, the heirs of Nathaniel Watson, and for Mrs. Dakin, and that they all be required to propound their claims to the debts, and submit them to the decision of the court, and that a decree be made directing the complainant to whom to pay the money so due by him. It appears by the bill that Nathaniel Watson died unmarried and without descendants, and that the heirs of John Watson, the intestate, are a part...
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