Hall v. Waddill

• Decision Date: 19 November 1900
• Court: Mississippi Supreme Court
• Parties: SARAH L. HALL ET AL. v. ALBERTA C. WADDILL ET AL

28 So. 831

78 Miss. 46

SARAH L. HALL ET AL. v. ALBERTA C. WADDILL ET AL

Supreme Court of Mississippi

November 19, 1900

March 1900

SECOND HEARING, SECOND APPEAL.

When the case was remanded, the complainants moved the chancery court, under code 1892, § 53, for a decree for the rents of the land in controversy, pending the appeal to the supreme court, against defendants and the sureties on their appeal bond. On the hearing of this motion, defendants offered evidence to show that in the year 1899 W. H. Barnard, who was administrator of the estate of Eudora J. Barnard, deceased was in possession of said lands in dispute, and collected the rents for the year 1899 for the purpose of applying the same to the payment of the debts duly probated against the estate of the said Eudora J. Barnard, deceased, and that said decedent left personal estate to the amount of $ 400, and that debts had been probated against said estate to the amount of $ 2, 700, exclusive of interest, which debts had not been paid at the beginning of the year 1899, and that the rents of the year 1899 had been applied to the payment of said debts, pro tanto, by said administrator, and that said Eudora Barnard left no other estate, except said personal property and said lands. On objection by complainants, the court declined to admit said testimony, and granted the motion and rendered a decree against the defendants and their sureties on the appeal bond for the sum of $ 1, 469.72. Defendants then filed a motion to set aside the decree, and in support of said motion, filed the affidavit of J. C. Hall the substantial averments of which are as follows: That he is agent of defendants, and that none of them, nor said sureties, were in possession of any of said lands during the year 1899 or 1900, and that the same were in the actual possession and control of W. H. Barnard, administrator of the estate of Eudora J. Barnard, deceased, duly appointed by the chancery court of Sharkey county, and that said administrator collected the rents on said lands for the year 1899, and used the same in payment of the just and probated debts of the said Eudora J. Barnard, and for which said estate was liable and that the rents of 1900, when collected by him, were devoted to the same purpose; that the personal estate left was very small in value, and that the same had been used in the payment of debts due by said decedent, and was wholly insufficient to pay the same; that there was justly due said defendants, for the use and occupation by the said Eudora J. Barnard of their two-thirds interest in the 88 acres in the S.W. 1/4 of section 17, and the W. 1/2 of N.W. of section 20 for the years 1895, 1896 and 1897; that she was in the sole and exclusive possession of the said lands during the said years, and appropriated and used all the rents and issues therefor for her own benefit, and that the same amounted to the sum of $ 293 annually, making a total of $ 879 for the three years, which sum said defendants are entitled to set off against any amount claimed for rent under said motion; that all the cleared land upon the property involved in this controversy is located in sections 17, 20 and 21, and that the cleared land in section 17, cultivable, is only 134 acres, and that in section 21 about 25 acres, making a total of 159 acres in the said two sections; adding thereto one-third of the 88 acres in sections 17 and 20, found to belong to complainants, the total amount in cultivation for which complainants could make any claim would be 188 acres; this is all for which any claim for rent could be made; the only land for which any rent could be charged or collected, is the cultivable land; that wood land on said premises has no rental value whatever; that said cultivable land rents for five dollars per acre, commencing on the first day of January and terminating on the thirty-first day of December of each year, and that is the full rental value thereof, so that the total rent of said property is $ 940, from which must be deducted the amount paid for taxes, to-wit: $ 124.03--the taxes in all instances being paid by the proprietor--leaving a total rental value of said land of $ 815.97; all agricultural lands in Sharkey county and throughout the delta, rent, not by the month, but by the year, and only for the year commencing on the first day of January and terminating on the thirty-first day of December, and this custom is so universal that all persons have notice thereof; that in the year 1900 said lands were rented by the said administrator to different parties at the rental value of five dollars per acre per annum, which rent was due and payable, as was well known to complainants, in the fall of the year, when the crops matured; that complainants had a writ of possession issued in June, ousting defendants and said administrator from the possession of said land, and are now claiming said land as their own and in their possession, and...