O'Mulcahey v. Gragg

• Decision Date: 20 December 1890
• Citation: 45 Minn. 112
• Parties: WILLIAM O'MULCAHEY <I>vs.</I> WILLIAM GRAGG and others.
• Court: Minnesota Supreme Court

45 Minn. 112

WILLIAM O'MULCAHEYvs.

WILLIAM GRAGG and others.

Supreme Court of Minnesota.

December 20, 1890.

Appeals by defendants, heirs-at-law of Levi Gragg, deceased, from two judgments of the district court for Ramsey county, Otis, J., presiding, reversing orders of the probate court of Dakota county, and allowing the claims mentioned in the opinion (for $2,479.47 and $142.30, respectively,) in favor of plaintiff as assignee of the original claimants. The appeals from the probate court were on questions of both law and fact, the place of trial was by stipulation changed to Ramsey county, and in each case a jury was waived.

Williams, Goodenow & Stanton, for appellants.

Geo. N. Baxter, for respondent.

GILFILLAN, C. J.¹

These are two appeals from judgments of the district court allowing (on appeals from the probate court) two different claims against the estate of Levi Gragg, one accruing to one Marfield, the other to one Spalding. One of the claims arose against Gragg in the state of New York in 1849, the other passed into a judgment against him before a justice of the peace in the state of Illinois in 1858. Gragg left the state of New York in 1853, and never returned, and he died in 1866 in the state of Missouri. In 1879, an administrator of his estate was appointed by the probate court in Dakota county, this state. In 1880, the claims were presented for allowance to the probate court, so that in one case 31 years, and in the other at least 22 years, elapsed from the time the claim arose before it was presented, and as to each 14 years elapsed from the time of Gragg's death before the claim was so presented. It appears in one of the cases that Gragg lived for three or four months, during either the year 1855 or the year 1856, in this state, and that he lived at times, after he left New York, in Illinois, Indiana, and Missouri, but how long in any one of them does not appear. The claims are opposed, first, on the ground that they are barred by the statute of limitations; second, that they come under the denomination of stale claims, or claims upon which the holder will be denied a remedy because of his delay or laches in seeking it. The claims were certainly not barred by the statute of this state, as they came within the exception in Gen. St. 1878, c. 66, § 15. It is not claimed that they were barred by the statute of any other state, so as to come within the provisions of section 16, c. 66, unless the claim arising in the state of New York was barred by the statute of that state. It certainly does not seem clear that it was so barred, and the view that we take of the second ground of opposition to the claims, and which is applicable to both alike, renders it unnecessary to determine whether it was or not.

The doctrine of laches, as a reason for the denial of a remedy, applies peculiarly to equitable rights and equitable remedies. Where one is seeking a legal remedy upon a legal right, as in an ordinary action at law, we have held that the remedy will be barred only by the statute of limitations. Morris v. McClary, 43 Minn. 346, (46 N. W. Rep. 238.) The statute of limitations did not apply to proceedings to enforce claims against the estates of deceased persons, but only to actions. Section 18, c. 66, related to actions which might be brought by or against the representatives of such persons, and not to the proceedings to establish claims to be paid out of the estate. Instances of actions which might under that section be brought against the representatives are actions for...