Carr v. Illinois Cent. R. Co.

• Decision Date: 21 November 1912
• Citation: 180 Ala. 159,60 So. 277
• Parties: CARR v. ILLINOIS CENT. R. CO.
• Court: Alabama Supreme Court

60 So. 277

180 Ala. 159

CARR v. ILLINOIS CENT. R. CO.

Supreme Court of Alabama

November 21, 1912

Rehearing Denied Dec. 17, 1912.

Appeal from Chancery Court, Jefferson County; A. H. Benners Chancellor.

Bill by E. Carr, as administrator of the estate of David Dodd deceased, against the Illinois Central Railroad Company. Decree for defendant, and complainant appeals. Reversed and decree rendered for complainant.

Denson & Denson, of Birmingham, for appellant.

Percy Benners & Burr, of Birmingham, for appellee.

SAYRE J.

This bill was filed by appellant as administrator of the estate of David Dodd, deceased, seeking to set aside a judgment rendered in favor of a preceding administrator of the same estate in a suit which the former administrator had brought against defendant for the recovery of damages for the alleged wrongful death of complainant's intestate. The ultimate purpose of the bill is to remove the obstacle of the former judgment of recovery which stands in the way of any suit the present administrator may bring for the recovery of damages on account of his intestate's death. Appellant's case is this: Appellant's intestate having been accidentally killed while in the employment of the appellee, under circumstances which left to his personal representative a litigable case against appellee for substantial damages, within 30 days thereafter some person calling himself J. W. Dodd, and falsely and fraudulently alleging himself to be decedent's next of kin, and so entitled to share in the distribution of decedent's estate, procured letters of administration from the probate court of Winston county. Decedent left no considerable estate save only the claim for damages. The averment of Dodd's petition for letters was that decedent "died seised and possessed of real and personal estate in this state, consisting chiefly of a claim against the Illinois Central Railway Company, all of said real and personal estate being estimated to be worth about $50, and probably not more." Decedent had no such relative as J. W. Dodd, nor does any one now appear to know who or where he is. It is clear that the sole purpose of the letters issued to J. W. Dodd, so called, was to enable him to control for his own purposes the claim for damages and any suit that might be brought for its enforcement. His performance cannot be explained on any other hypothesis. These letters were dated January 3, 1910. On June 7th of the same year they were revoked by the court from which they had issued. Meanwhile the fraudulent administrator had brought suit in the city court of Birmingham, and the case came on for trial on April 12, 1910, at which time the parties, through their attorneys, agreed that plaintiff should have a judgment for $100, and so announced to the court. But, for some reason--probably the inadvertence of the judge--no entry of judgment was made upon the docket or minutes of the court until April 18th, six days later. Upon the last-named date judgment was entered by the court as of April 12th upon the suggestion and request of counsel for the defendant, appellee here. Appellant's attorney thereupon made a motion to have the judgment set aside. This motion was successfully resisted by appellee. Neither Dodd nor his attorney took part in opposing the motion, his attorney deposing that he had become convinced that a fraud had been perpetrated upon him. In reaching the agreement the attorneys for both parties appear to have acted in good faith. Nor do we find evidence which would warrant the conclusion that there was bad faith on the part of other officers or agents of the defendant. It is true that later in January appellee's claim agent at Jackson, Tenn., was put upon notice by decedent's father, who lived in Mississippi, that he (the father) denied J. W. Dodd's right to maintain the suit, and desired that a settlement be had between him and the railroad company. True, also, the company's claim agent held out to the old man some indefinite promises of a settlement. But these facts, referred to by appellant as evidences of bad faith, hardly justify the inference drawn. They fall far short of proving appellee's complicity in the scheme by which fraudulent letters of administration were procured or in a conspiracy to defraud those entitled to share in the distribution of what might have been the more ample fruits of a suit prosecuted in good faith to a just conclusion.

But while there are no sufficient grounds for holding that the agreement for a judgment was the product of collusion or any fraud upon the part of appellee, as the bill charges, we do not think that appellee's view of the case is to be justified on the theory, which evidently it thereafter adopted, to wit: That, having arrived by negotiation legitimate so far as appellee was concerned, at an agreement for the compromise of a disputed claim with a person armed with the authority of duly authenticated letters of administration, its right to the execution of the agreement and to have it put into the form of a thing adjudicated was unaffected by the facts thereafter brought to its notice. The fact is that after the agreement had been reached, but before it had been put in the form of a judgment, or had been executed by the payment of the amount agreed upon, defendant was informed of the contention of decedent's relatives, and that measures would be adopted for the revocation of J. W. Dodd's letters. Appellee's subsequent activity to the end that the agreement might be put into the form of...