Bonaparte v. State

• Decision Date: 07 May 1885
• Parties: CHARLES J. BONAPARTE, Executor of Elizabeth Patterson, v. THE STATE OF MARYLAND. CHARLES J. BONAPARTE, Executor of Elizabeth Patterson, v. The Mayor and City Council of Baltimore.
• Court: Maryland Court of Appeals

63 Md. 465

CHARLES J. BONAPARTE, Executor of Elizabeth Patterson, v. THE STATE OF MARYLAND.

CHARLES J. BONAPARTE, Executor of Elizabeth Patterson, v. The Mayor and City Council of Baltimore.

Court of Appeals of Maryland

May 7, 1885

The causes were argued before ALVEY, C.J., YELLOTT, STONE MILLER, IRVING, RITCHIE and BRYAN, JJ.

William Reynolds, George Hawkins Williams and I Nevett Steele, for the appellant.

Charles B. Roberts, Attorney-General, for the State of Maryland.

Bernard Carter, City Solicitor, and James L. McLane, City Counsellor, for the Mayor and City Council of Baltimore.

Ritchie J., delivered the opinion of the court.

These two appeals, embraced in one record and tried together, were taken by the appellant as executor of the will of Mrs. Elizabeth Patterson, late of Baltimore City, deceased, from judgments recovered against him in suits respectively by the State of Maryland and the Mayor and City Council of Baltimore, for taxes on the personal property of said Elizabeth Patterson, consisting of stocks, bonds and other intangible property not permanently located in that city, assessed in her lifetime, and for taxes on the same property while in the hands of said executor pending the settlement of the estate.

It appears that letters testamentary were granted to the appellant by the Orphans' Court of Baltimore City on the 9th of April, 1879; that on the 13th of September following, said court, in accordance with his petition, in which he states that he had paid all the debts of said testatrix which had come to his knowledge, and was content to assume any others that might be demanded, passed an order allowing him to pass a final account, making distribution of said estate; and that accordingly, on the 1st of October, 1879, he passed such final account and made such distribution--six months not having elapsed since his letters were issued, and a notice of that length not having been given to creditors to produce their claims.

None of the tax bills were presented to the Orphans' Court for their approval and passage, but were presented to the executor both before and after the settlement of his final account, who denied their correctness; and because of his refusal to pay them these suits were instituted December 31st, 1880, about fifteen months after his said final distribution. The failure to have these claims for taxes passed by the Orphans' Court, and to bring suit upon them within nine months from his refusal to pay them, are among the grounds upon which the appellant resists their recovery.

In support of this position, the appellant relies upon the following sections of Art. 93 of the Code, sec. 109, which provides that "where all the assets have been paid away, delivered or distributed, as herein directed, and a claim shall afterwards be exhibited, of which the administrator has not notice by the exhibition of the claim legally authenticated, as herein required, he shall not be answerable for the same." Sec. 117 of the same Article, which declares: "No administrator shall be bound to take notice of any claim against his decedent, unless the same shall be exhibited to such administrator legally authenticated, or unless such claim shall have been passed by the Orphans' Court, and entered by the register upon his docket, or unless a suit shall be pending against such administrator for such claim;" sec. 98, which provides that "no administrator shall be allowed in his account for any claim discharged by him, unless he produce the claim passed by the Orphans' Court, or proven as herein directed;" and also sec. 83, the first of the series of sections of said Art. 93, prescribing how debts shall be proved against estates, which provides that no "administrator shall discharge any claim against his decedent (otherwise than at his own risk) unless the same be first passed by the Orphans' Court, granting the administration, or unless the said claim shall be passed according to the following rules."

The question thus arises, whether taxes constitute such claims as are within the contemplation of these sections. If they are of such nature as not to require authentication by the Orphans' Court, or institution of suit to affect executors and administrators with notice of their existence, and create their liability to discharge them, these sections cannot avail the appellant in the present suits.

These sections of the Code are under the general caption of "Debts." Are taxes properly comprehended in the use of that term? The word "debts," in its common signification, which is that in which we think the Code employs it, imports the moneyed obligation of a person incurred in his private capacity, or from his individual acts, and not such obligations as are imposed upon him by law in his public relations, or in common with all other citizens. As defined by this court in Baltimore v. Greenmount Cemetery, 7 Md. 517, the word "tax" means "a burden, charge or imposition put or set upon a person or property for public uses." And in Cooley on Taxation, 13, the distinction between taxes and debts is thus stated: "Taxes are not debts in the ordinary sense of that term, and their collection will in general depend on the remedies which are given by statute for their enforcement. Where no remedy is specially provided, a remedy by suit may be fairly implied, but where one is given which does not embrace an action at law, a tax cannot in general be recovered in a common law action as a debt. Taxes are not demands against which a set-off is admissible; their assessment does not constitute a technical judgment, nor are they contracts between party and party, either express or implied; but they are the positive acts of the government through its various agents, binding upon the inhabitants, and to the making and enforcing of which their personal consent individually is not required."

The scrutiny and approval of the Orphans' Court provided for by the Code as to claims made against estates of deceased persons are safeguards applicable and appropriate to claims essentially of a private nature, arising from individual transactions, and of which an administrator cannot be presumed to have knowledge. The merits or validity of private demands may well be inquirable into by the Orphans' Court, and its sanction of their amount be...