Johnstone v. Fritz, Guardian

• Decision Date: 30 December 1893
• Docket Number: 55
• Citation: 159 Pa. 378,28 A. 148
• Parties: Johnstone v. Fritz, Guardian, Appellant
• Court: Pennsylvania Supreme Court

28 A. 148

159 Pa. 378

Johnstone v. Fritz, Guardian, Appellant

No. 55

Supreme Court of Pennsylvania

December 30, 1893

Argued November 13, 1893

Appeal, No. 55, Oct. T., 1893, by defendant, S. Fritz guardian of Thomas Johnstone, from judgment of C.P. No. 2 Allegheny Co., Jan. T., 1891, No. 588, on verdict for plaintiff, A. A. Johnstone.

Assumpsit for maintenance furnished defendant's ward.

At the trial, before MAGEE, J., it appeared that plaintiff was the elder brother of Thomas Johnstone, defendant's ward. Plaintiff claimed to recover $395.62 as a balance owing to him for board and clothing furnished to his brother. Plaintiff also claimed to recover $25 for expenses incurred in securing the ward's acquittal of the charge of forging a check. The contention between the parties was as to whether the money expended by plaintiff was for necessaries or not. The court submitted the whole case to the jury. No question seems to have been raised as to the jurisdiction of the court, either in the court below or in the Supreme Court.

Verdict and judgment for plaintiff for $436.95.

Errors assigned were instructions.

The judgment of the court below is therefore reversed without a venire de novo.

G. W. Williams, N. S. Williams and Laird & Keenan with him, for appellant.

R. S. Martin, for appellee.

Before STERRETT, C.J., GREEN, WILLIAMS, McCOLLUM, MITCHELL, DEAN and THOMPSON, JJ.

OPINION

MR. CHIEF JUSTICE STERRETT:

In the view we take of this case, it is unnecessary to consider the errors assigned on the record. Had the purpose of the action brought been to charge the guardian individually, the jurisdiction must have been conceded and the merits of the claim have been considered; but having been to charge the minor's estate, the want of jurisdiction is so plain that this court is compelled suo motu to take notice of it. The act of 1832 gave the orphans' court exclusive jurisdiction of the estates of minors and of the settlement of the accounts of their guardians; and necessarily of all questions of allowance for maintenance. "Nothing," said Mr. Justice BLACK, in Morris v. Garrison, 27 Pa. 226, "can be better settled as a general rule than this: That a person who has a right to appeal from a judgment, to conduct the trial in its different stages and to take a writ of error, is concluded by the final decision of it. If the ward, therefore, could rightfully do what her husband did in this cause, a judgment for the plaintiff would have been an estoppel in the orphans' court. Having been heard in the common pleas, she had no right to be heard again. The result of allowing a ward to appear in such a case would then be to change the forum for settling a guardian's accounts, contrary to that law which gives the exclusive jurisdiction of such subjects to...