In re Johnson's Estate

• Decision Date: 16 January 1942
• Docket Number: 15355.
• Citation: 18 S.E.2d 450,198 S.C. 526
• Parties: In re JOHNSON'S ESTATE. Claims of JOHNSON et al. JOHNSON v. CRUTCHFIELD.
• Court: South Carolina Supreme Court

18 S.E.2d 450

198 S.C. 526

In re JOHNSON'S ESTATE.

Claims of JOHNSON et al.

JOHNSON v. CRUTCHFIELD.

No. 15355.

Supreme Court of South Carolina

January 16, 1942

E W. Johnson, of Spartanburg, for appellant.

Whiteside & Taylor, of Spartanburg, for respondent.

STUKES Justice.

Mrs Alice Crutchfield Johnson died intestate and childless in 1936. There was no administration upon her estate at that time for lack of existing assets. Funeral expenses in the amount of $550 were paid by her husband, appellant here. Her brother, here respondent as administrator of her estate purchased a cemetery lot upon which she was buried and her mother paid $125 for a monument at the grave, the latter despite appellant's offer to meet this expense, and he does not object to repayment of these disbursements.

The father of the deceased died in 1940 and a policy of insurance on his life became payable to his widow and children in such manner that a share in the proceeds accrued to the estate of Mrs. Johnson in approximately the sum of $2,900, whereupon her brother, the respondent, was appointed and qualified as administrator of the estate and as such collected the sum mentioned. He made claim individually against himself as administrator for reimbursement of certain sums paid by him during the years 1927-1930 for premiums upon the policy and for interest upon a policy loan. It seems that there were two policies and that the son, present administrator and respondent, undertook alone to provide for the payment of the premiums, the insured having discontinued such payments.

However, one policy was afterward surrendered. The evidence of the payments was incomplete but the Lower Courts allowed the claim in a lesser amount than that sought, upon the equitable doctrine of contribution, and as a part of the approved claim allowed interest on the portion held chargeable against the estate of Mrs. Johnson. The appeal challenges the correctness of the inclusion of interest.

The only other question presented by the appeal arises out of the disallowance of the claim of the appellant for reimbursement for the amount paid by him, $550 as stated above, for the funeral expenses of his wife. The Probate Court held, and the Circuit Court on appeal affirmed, that the primary liability for such funeral expenses was upon the surviving husband of the deceased, not upon the estate of the latter, and that, therefore, the husband, the appellant, cannot recoup from the estate the sum paid by him on that account.

The questions thus presented will be decided in the order stated. It will be noted that there is no conflict involving the payment of ordinary creditors of the estate. The allowance or disallowance of the claims will otherwise affect only the amounts which will be received by the next of kin in the distribution of the funds of the estate. The record shows that there are no other creditors and the only claimants are as has been set forth.

As indicated, appellant makes no question of the liability of the estate for its proper proportion of the amount of insurance premiums advanced, which was stated in the decree of the Probate Court to be $246.24. Therein it was adjudged that "to this sum should be added interest at the legal rate from the time of payment to the present."

The decree of the Circuit Court upon this point is to the same effect, stating the amount and "with interest to the present time." However, the advances by the claimant for the payment of premiums extended over several years, and the following occurs in respondent's brief: "Interest was allowed by the court from the date the last premium was paid by Ralph L. Crutchfield, at which time certainly the amount of his claim against her, that is her indebtedness to him because of these payments, was not unliquidated. At the time the final premium was paid by the claimant, the amount or sum was susceptible of ascertainment ***." We take it, therefore, that in the final calculation of the amount of the interest such will be included, as stated in the foregoing quotation, only from the date of the last premium payment by claimant and, incidentally, at the legal rate and not compounded.

On that premise, surely, it cannot be said that the Courts below erred. Several South Carolina cases are cited in the footnote to the following which is quoted from 33 C.J. 201, 202: "*** The general rule is that one who lends money to, or makes advances for, the benefit of another, is entitled to interest upon the amount so lent or advanced, although nothing is said about interest at the time of the transaction." Although the facts of that case are not similar, the following generalization in the opinion in Leaphart v. National Surety Company, 167 S.C. 327, 166 S.E. 415, 421, is applicable: "*** It is the accepted law that a liquidated claim draws interest, and, furthermore, it is not necessary that the claim be reduced to judgment in order to be subject to interest, but, as stated in the opinion in the case of Ancrum v. Slone, 2 Speers 594, interest is allowable 'if the sum is certain or capable of being reduced to a certainty, from the time when, either by the agreement of the parties or the construction of law, the payment was demandable."'

In view of these considerations, we think there was no error in the allowance of interest, certainly as stated above, from the date of the last premium payment, and the exceptions thereabout are overruled. It should be added that appellant makes the point that interest was not demanded by claimant, but we do not think this objection properly lies in view of the procedure below. There is no written claim of record and it was heard informally by the Court without pleadings and on verbal testimony on which the Probate Judge filed his formal order allowing interest, referred to above, and it was a matter of controversy before the Circuit Judge.

There remains the more difficult question of whether the Courts below were in error in disallowing the claim of appellant for reimbursement from the estate of his wife of the amount paid by him for her funeral expenses. The result was reached by the conclusion that the liability at common law of the husband for the burial expenses of his wife is not impinged by the modern constitutional and statutory provisions affecting the rights and property of married women. And O'Hagan v. Fraternal Aid Union, 144 S.C. 84, 141 S.E. 893, 57 A. L.R. 397, was cited to that general effect. However, in that case there was involved only the question of whether the surviving wife was obligated to pay from insurance accruing to her the funeral expenses of the husband in the absence of evidence of contract, express or implied. Undoubtedly, as there stated, a husband is liable at common law for the funeral expenses of his wife and what will be here said will not affect that liability except, under the circumstances here present, to make it secondary to the liability of the wife's separate estate.

As found in the Courts below, the question is novel in this jurisdiction and in the other States the Courts are sharply divided upon the problem. Little aid in its solution can...