Griffin v. Workman

• Decision Date: 02 July 1954
• Parties: GRIFFIN v. WORKMAN.
• Court: Florida Supreme Court

Page 844

73 So.2d 844

GRIFFIN v. WORKMAN.

Supreme Court of Florida, Special Division A.

July 2, 1954.

Carlton L. Welch, Jacksonville, for appellant.

Marks Gray, Yates & Conroy, Jacksonville, for J. D. Workman.

J. L. Blackwell, Live Oak, and A. K. Black, Lake City, for Florrie Adams as Administratrix of Estate of C. Leroy Adams, Jr., deceased.

SEBRING, Justice.

This is an appeal from a final order entered by the Circuit Court for Suwannee County granting a motion to dismiss the complaint in an action brought under the wrongful death statute, on the ground that the plaintiff in the cause did not have legal capacity to maintain the suit.

The pleadings and exhibits in the cause reflect that on November 28, 1950, Johnny Reece Griffin, a minor, died intestate. On November 26, 1952, his father instituted an action in the Circuit Court for Suwannee County to recover damages to the estate of the decedent, the complaint being styled as a suit by 'Jesse Phillip Griffin, Sr., as Administrator of the Estate of Johnny Reece Griffin, deceased.' The father, at the time of the institution of suit, was not in fact the administrator of the estate.

Two days after the suit was filed, the father petitioned the County Judge of Suwannee County to be appointed administrator and the appointment was made; the order of appointment reciting that 'upon taking the oath prescribed by law and giving a [specified bond] letters of administration * * * [will] be granted * * *.'

On January 9, 1953, one of the defendants in the wrongful death action filed a motion to dismiss the cause on the ground that 'There has been no administrator appointed to administer upon the Estate of Johnny Reece Griffin, deceased * * *.' Attached to the motion was a certificate of the county judge to the effect that as of January 8, 1953, no letters of administration had been issued as to the estate.

On January 15th, the daughter of Jesse Phillip Griffin, Sr., with the consent of her father, was appointed by the County Judge of Suwannee County, and became duly qualified in his stead as administratrix of the estate of her deceased brother. She immediately filed a motion in the wrongful death action for leave 'to amend the Complaint * * * by substituting [her] name as administratrix in the stead and place of the name of Jesse Phillip Griffin, Sr., presently named plaintiff as administrator in said estate.'

The motion to dismiss the complaint in the wrongful death action came on for hearing in the circuit court on January 15, the same day that the daughter had replaced her father as personal representative of the estate, and the motion for her substitution as party plaintiff was filed in the wrongful death action. With these facts before him, the judge of the circuit court made no ruling on the motion for substitution filed by the daughter as administratrix but, by an order dated January 30, granted the motion of the defendant and dismissed the cause at the cost of the plaintiff.

Thereafter, on January 31, 1953, the County Judge of Suwannee County accepted the resignation of the daughter as administratrix and thereupon appointed the father, Jesse Phillip Griffin, Sr., as administrator, and letters were duly and regularly issued to him. The motion for substitution was then withdrawn and Griffin filed a petition for rehearing, alleging therein that the delays and substitutions in the probate proceedings had been the result of illness and mistake, and requesting clarification of the ground upon which the complaint had been dismissed. From the original order of dismissal, and a subsequent order denying rehearing and specifying lack of capacity as the ground for dismissal, this appeal has been taken.

The appellant contends that the circuit court erred in refusing to grant the motion for substitution of the duly qualified administratrix as plaintiff in the suit, so as to give effect to the proceedings by which the daughter was appointed and qualified to serve in her father's place, amounting to a ratificatinon and validation of the action originally taken by the father in commencing suit on behalf of the estate; and in denying the petition for rehearing filed by Griffin after his ultimate qualification as personal representative and withdrawal of the motion for substitution.

We have the opinion that the circuit court committed reversible error in not allowing the cause to proceed after letters of administration had been issued in the probate proceedings, and in refusing to relate the issuance of the letters back to the time of the beginning of the suit. The claim which formed the basis for the wrongful death action was a claim of the estate of the decedent; indeed, was the only asset of the estate. The suit was brought on behalf of the estate by the person who was immediately entitled to administration. Section 732.44(2), Florida Statutes 1951, F.S.A. No. fraud or inequity is involved, and no new casue of action would have been presented by allowing the father to prosecute the action to a conclusion. We think, therefore, that the issue is ruled by the ancient doctrine 'that whenever letters of administration or testamentary are granted they relate back to the intestate's or testator's death. * * * The doctrine has been accepted with virtual unanimity, since it was promulgated, in a long line of cases.' Annotation, 26 A.L.R. 1360. Under this doctrine 'all previous acts of the representative which were beneficial in their nature to the estate and * * * which are in their nature such that he could have performed, had he been duly qualified, as personal representative at the time, are validated.' 21 Am.Jur., Exec. & Admin., section 211; Schouler on Wills, Executors and Administrators, 5th ed., Vol. 2, p. 1176.

A wide variety of acts and conduct by a party acting in behalf of an estate when he was not properly qualified have been held to be validated or ratified by his subsequent qualification as administrator. A few of the many examples that might be cited are: an advancement to a distributee, McAleer v. Cawthon, 215 Ala. 674, 112 So. 251; the sale of estate property, Shawnee Nat. Bank v. Van Zant, 84 Okl. 107, 202 P. 285, 26 A.L.R. 1349; the execution of a deed, Wilson v. Wilson, 54 Mo. 213.

More specifically in point, it has been held that where a wrongful death action was instituted by a party 'as administrator,' his subsequent appointment as such validated the proceeding on the theory of relation back. Archdeacon v. Cincinnati Gas & Electric Co., 76 Ohio St. 97, 81 N.E. 152. In the opinion the court pointed out that the institution of suit 'was not a...