In re Witt's Estate

• Decision Date: 24 June 1913
• Citation: 74 Wash. 172,132 P. 1012
• Court: Washington Supreme Court
• Parties: In re WITT'S ESTATE.

132 P. 1012

74 Wash. 172

In re WITT'S ESTATE.

Supreme Court of Washington

June 24, 1913

Department 2. Appeal from Superior Court, Lincoln County; F. K. P Baske, Judge.

Judicial settlement of the estate of Mollie Witt, deceased. From an order settling the executor's account, the devisees appeal. Affirmed.

Lovell & Davis, of Ritzville, for appellants.

Joseph Sessions, of Davenport, for respondent.

FULLERTON, J.

In October, 1906, Mollie Witt, then a resident of Lincoln county, Wash., died testate therein, devising her estate to her children, and naming her husband, August Witt, as executor thereof. Her estate consisted of 320 acres of farm land, which she held in her own separate right, a community interest in 540 acres of farm land, and a community interest in certain personal property, consisting of live stock farming implements, and farm products; the whole being appraised at $37,761. The indebtedness of the estate at that time was something over $17,000. On April 13, 1912, the executor filed his final account with the estate. This account contained an itemized statement of the receipts and expenditures of the executor during the course of his administration, and showed generally the condition of the estate, and that it was ready to be closed and the property distributed to the heirs and devisees thereof. A time was fixed for hearing the account, at which time the beneficiaries named in the will appeared and challenged the correctness of the account, making specific objections to numerous items contained therein. On the hearing the court allowed certain of the items objected to and disallowed others, entering a decree approving the account as corrected and distributing the estate. The devisees appeal.

Only four of the disputed items are in question in this court. The court charged the executor with the sum of $6,500 on account of the crops from the farm lands for the years 1909 and 1910 whereas the devisees claim that he should have been charged with $9,500. It was shown by the warehouseman's books that wheat to the value of the latter sum was delivered and sold to the warehouse company by the executor during the years named, and it appears that the executor had at one time so reported in one of his annual accounts. But the executor explains that his report was the result of a mistake; that while he delivered and sold to the warehouse company the quantity of wheat shown by their books, a part of it, equal in value to $3,000, was actually grown on lands having no connection with the estate of which he was executor, and was included by him in his former account through an error on...