In re Hoss' Estate

• Decision Date: 16 July 1910
• Citation: 59 Wash. 360,109 P. 1071
• Court: Washington Supreme Court
• Parties: In re HOSS' ESTATE. v. GOETTER. MAHLER et al.

109 P. 1071

59 Wash. 360

In re HOSS' ESTATE.

MAHLER et al. v. GOETTER.

Supreme Court of Washington

July 16, 1910

Department 2. Appeal from Superior Court, Stevens County; D. H. Carey Judge.

Petition by F. B. Goetter for letters of administration of the estate of Fred Hoss, in which Gottlieb Mahler and another filed a cross-petition. From a judgment granting the petition cross-petitioners appeal. Affirmed.

Birdseye & Smith, for appellants.

Jackson & Bailey and Jesseph & Grinstead, for respondent.

RUDKIN C.J.

Fred Hoss died intestate in Stevens county in this state on the 15th day of October, 1909, leaving an estate therein subject to administration. The heirs at law and next of kin of the decedent are two brothers and two sisters who are nonresident aliens, and therefore not qualified to take out letters of administration on his estate. One F. B. Goetter, claiming to be a creditor of the decedent, petitioned for letters of administration, and a cross-petition was filed by Gottlieb Mahler and Louisa Wormald, an uncle and a cousin of the decedent. The court below found that the petitioner Goetter was a principal creditor of the decedent, and that the petitioners Mahler and Wormald were not within the degrees of kinship entitling them to any priority in the grant of administration on the estate. Upon these findings an order was entered appointing the petitioner Goetter as administrator, and from this order the other petitioners have appealed.

If the claim of the respondent rested upon his status as a creditor the order appealed from should not be sustained. His claim rests entirely upon assignments taken by him since the death of the intestate, and whatever equities might exist in favor of an assignee in other cases, we are convinced that a person who buys claims against an estate for the purpose of qualifying himself as an administrator acquires no rights by his purchase. Such a proceeding savors too much of the purchase of the right to administer an estate and is against the policy of the law. Schouler on Executors, § 115; 11 Am. & Eng. Enc. of Law (2d Ed.) 774; 18 Cyc. 90; Pearce v. Castrix, 53 N.C. 71.

In support of the opposite rule counsel cite In re Sullivan, 25 Wash. 430, 25 P. 793, but the right of an assignee of a claim to administer upon an estate was neither involved nor considered in that case. However, if the appellants have no rights under the statute, they are in no position to complain, and that question we will now consider. The probate act of 1873 granted the right of administration in the following words: 'Administration of the estate of a person dying intestate shall be granted to some one or more of the persons hereinafter mentioned, and they shall be respectively entitled in the following order: 1. The surviving husband, or wife, or such person as he or she may request to have appointed. 2. The next of kin in the following order: (1) Child or children; (2) father or mother; (3) brothers or sisters; (4) grandchildren. 3. To one or more of the principal creditors: Provided, that if the persons so entitled or interested shall neglect for more than 40 days after the death of the intestate to present a petition for letters of administration the probate court or judge may appoint any suitable and competent person to administer such estate.' Laws 1873, p. 269, § 90. Subdivision 3 of this section was amended in 1881 to read as follows: 'To one or more of the principal creditors Provided, that if the persons so...