In re Campfield's Estate

• Decision Date: 25 July 1916
• Docket Number: No. 3488.,3488.
• Citation: 98 A. 381
• Parties: In re CAMPFIELD'S ESTATE.
• Court: New Jersey Supreme Court

98 A. 381

In re CAMPFIELD'S ESTATE.

No. 3488.

Prerogative Court of New Jersey.

July 25, 1916.

Appeal from Orphans' Court, Essex County.

In the Matter of the Estate of Mary E. Campfield. Exceptions to the executor's account were filed by the Orange Memorial Hospital, and from decrees dismissing the exceptions and allowing the account, it appeals. Affirmed.

Howe & Davis, of Orange, for appellant. Alfred F. Stevens, of Newark, for respondent.

FOSTER, V. C. These two appeals are taken by the Orange Memorial Hospital from decrees of the orphans' court of Essex county made on April 30, 1915.

The first decree dismissed exceptions filed by the hospital to the account of the executors of this estate; and the second decree allowed the account in all things as reported.

The hospital excepted to the allowance of the account because "the executors have included in the inventory, as filed, and have embraced in the account, now asked to be allowed, 50 shares of the capital stock of the United New Jersey Railroad & Canal Company, as if the said stock were a part of the estate. This exceptant claims that the said stock was given by decedent, in her lifetime, to this exceptant, and that it forms no part of the estate, and should be delivered by the executors to the corporation and not included in their accounting or inventory."

It is agreed by counsel that there are but two questions to be considered in determining these appeals, viz.: First, the authority of the orphans' court to hear the exceptions; and, second, has the hospital shown itself to be a party interested in the settlement of the account of the executors of this estate?

Appellant claims that its exceptions were addressed to the general jurisdiction of the court, not as a creditor, but to prevent the executors from violating or disregarding the express written direction and wishes of the testatrix. Its contention is that decedent having made a gift to it of the stock in question in her lifetime (and which was found among her effects after her death), the orphans' court should have exercised the jurisdiction it possessed, and by hearing the exceptions, determined to whom the stock belonged.

I have not found any statute conferring such jurisdiction on the orphans' court, and no case has been called to my attention in which such jurisdiction is recognized.

In Partridge v. Partridge, 46 N. J. Eq. 434, 19 Atl. 662, affirmed 47 N. J. Eq. 601, 22 Atl. 1075, it was held that the orphans' court has no jurisdiction to try disputed claims, except in cases of insolvent estates.

In McSpirit's Estate, 73 N. J. Eq. 613, 68 Atl. 755, a case very much in point, Chancellor Magie held that under the jurisdiction to pass upon the fairness of an inventory, the orphans' court may not determine the title to choses in action,...