Dickinson v. Seaver
| Decision Date | 10 November 1880 |
| Citation | 44 Mich. 624,7 N.W. 182 |
| Court | Michigan Supreme Court |
| Parties | DICKINSON v. SEAVER and others. |
Appeal from Van Buren.
Norris & Uhl, for complainant.
Geer & Williams and A.B. Maynard, for defendants and appellants.
Dickinson filed his bill as an alleged creditor of the estate of Timothy Morse, deceased, to set aside an award made in July 1863, on a submission between Seaver, as administrator with the will annexed, and the other defendants, who by the award were released from full payment of a mortgage given by them to decedent of $50,000. The bill seeks the enforcement of this mortgage against the mortgagors, so far as the debt thereby secured is involved, and for a general accounting and distribution of the estate.
The court below, which was the circuit court for the county of Van Buren, declared the award invalid as against complainant and such of the creditors as should appear, and made a decree for an accounting including not only these assets, but also the credits due the administrator. Defendants appeal.
The case can be better understood by some reference to the antecedent proceedings. Morse, who lived in Vermont, died testate in 1862, and his will was probated in Vermont, and Seaver qualified as executor. Commissioners were appointed in that state, and a large number of debts proved, including all now claimed by complainant. In June, 1863, the will was upon regular proceedings admitted to probate in Lapeer county Michigan, and Seaver qualified as administrator with the will annexed. No claims were ever presented or allowed in the Lapeer probate, so far as we are advised by this record. In July, 1873, Seaver and other defendants submitted their differences to arbitration. The chief controversy--and so far as the evidence satisfies us, the only real controversy--was as to the mortgage before referred to, which--so far as we need refer to it--was of this nature.
In 1857 the mortgagors purchased of Morse 3,200 acres of land for $50,000 payable in ten instalments. There was an agreement given back that unless a railroad then projected should be built to the lands in two years, the purchasers might rescind, and Morse would release the mortgage and notes and take back the land. When the two years expired he had hypothecated the securities and could not give them back. The defendants claim, and they are borne out by the evidence, that Morse under these circumstances desired them to go on and lumber the lands, and take such measures as were necessary for that purpose, and he would make the proper allowance for the difference in price caused by the failure of the railroad. There were some other matters between them which in our view are of no present importance.
Seaver and William F. Dickinson (father and assignor of complainant) came out shortly after Morse's death, and became fully acquainted with all of these matters. Dickinson was then interested in his own behalf or for others in claims against the estate, and defendants had had full communication with him. There is no direct evidence of his complicity in the award, but he knew of the Michigan probate, and dealt with the administrator as such. The bill claims that the award in question was made by the arbitrators as practically no more than a mere formality to carry out an arragement as to its terms already agreed upon. As already suggested the parties alleging claims did not prove their claims before the Lapeer probate court, and took no part in that whatever.
Complainant gets his alleged title in this way: On the thirty-first of December, 1872, somewhat more than nine years after the Michigan probate, a bill was filed in the United States circuit court for the western district of Michigan, in the name of a considerable number of persons claiming to be creditors of Morse's estate, to the amount of $11,589.97 as of May 12, 1863, when the commissioners in Vermont reported,--the whole amount of claims being set forth as allowed at $58,604.09,--to set aside probate sales of land made in June, 1865, under a license granted in Lapeer in October, 1864, for fraud. These sales were made to William F. Dickinson, and complainant in this case was brought in as having become interested under him. The bill purported to be filed on behalf of the complainants named in it and all other creditors who might come in and contribute to the expenses.
The bill contained among other things a prayer for an accounting by Seaver of the affairs of the estate, and payment of claims, and a receiver of the assets, as well as the general prayer. On the seventh of September, 1877, a decree was made avoiding the sales, except as to Chase H. Dickinson and others not parties to the suit, and requiring an account of the proceeds to be taken. It also set forth that several of the complainants had assigned before or after suit brought, (not showing who were in either category,) and allowing their assignees to come in and prove their claims. The master reported claims originally allowed at $17,707.55, part of which had been subsequently purchased by William F. Dickinson, and on September 8, 1877, transferred to Chase H. Dickinson, and the rest purchased by Henry C. McDuffy, and on the last-mentioned day assigned to Chase H. Dickinson, against whom the case was discontinued.
These claims were proved by a stipulation between Thomas B. Church purporting to act as solicitor for defendant W.F. Dickinson and by Chase H. Dickinson and Morris as solicitors for complainant, whereby it was stipulated that any person now claiming to own any of the claims allowed in Vermont, might prove them by producing and establishing by his own oath an assignment of any of those claims as appearing in what purported to be a copy of the commissioner's report--not certified in the form required by the acts of congress, and very incomplete otherwise. Under this stipulation, Chase H Dickinson, who is a citizen of the state of Michigan, and was no longer a party to the record, was allowed to prove all the claims passed upon, and of these there were between...
To continue reading
Request your trial