Hamilton v. Pleasants

• Decision Date: 31 January 1869
• Citation: 31 Tex. 638
• Parties: JOHN R. HAMILTON ET AL. v. HENRY C. PLEASANTS.
• Court: Texas Supreme Court

31 Tex. 638

JOHN R. HAMILTON ET AL.

v.HENRY C. PLEASANTS.

Supreme Court of Texas.

January, 1869.

The court has absolute control of all interlocutory judgments or orders in every case until the final judgment.

In all sales made by an executor or an administrator he acts under the decretal order of the probate court, and the purchaser at his own peril is required to ascertain the grounds and authority of the fiduciary, not from his declarations at the time of the sale, but from the orders of the court and the statutes of the state in regard to his special duties in the premises.

The administrator could make no terms with purchasers at such sales which the orders of the court or the laws of the land did not warrant. Of the nature of such orders and the provisions of the law, the purchaser had the same means of knowing and understanding as the administrator. If the law therefore did not warrant a sale for Confederate money, the declaration of the administrator at the time of the sale, that the sale was made for Confederate money, could not operate as a fraud upon the purchaser. Ante, 611.

ERROR from De Witt. The case was tried before Hon. J. J. HOLT, one of the district judges.

This was a suit in the district court of De Witt county, filed March 11, 1866, by Pleasants, administrator on a note for negroes belonging to his intestate, sold under the order of the probate court, in November, 1862; personal security and a lien on the property sold were ordered by the court. The note was given December 18, 1862. John Hamilton, John R. Hamilton, and Summers signed the note, but whether the two latter were principals or securities does not appear. John R. Hamilton and Summers set up below that the sale was not made according to the order of the statute (Paschal's Dig. art. 1333); that no mortgage was taken by the administrator on the slaves and no personal security, as required; that the sale was made by the administrator to be paid in Confederate money, and the bid made under such assurance, on which they relied at the time of the bid and execution of the note; defendants agreed that a judgment might go against them for the value of Confederate money at the maturity of the note, November 4, 1863.

They set up fraud in the administrator at the sale and at the execution of the note; in this, that he stated at the sale that the bids would be in Confederate money and the notes payable therewith, and that defendants relied on his representations in making the bid and making the note, and the subsequent refusal of the administrator to receive the same or its equivalent in value at its maturity.

Albert N. Mills, for plaintiff in error. The matter set up in amended answers of April 3 and October 2, 1866, was a sufficient ground for relief. They alleged that the administrator sold the slaves to be paid for in Confederate money, and so announced it at the term of bidding; that defendants relied on such assurances in making the bid and at the execution of the note, which mode of payment the administrator afterwards declined. Defendants were willing for a judgment for the value of the Confederate money at the note's maturity. The defense is within the cases of Crayton v. Munger, 9 Tex. 285;Mitchell v. Zimmerman, 4 Tex. 79;Able v. Chandler, 12 Tex. 88;Combs v. Lane, 17 Tex. 280.

At the spring term, 1866, defendants set up, among other things, that the administrator put up and sold the slaves to be paid for in Confederate money, and that the note was...