Nutt v. Brandon

• Decision Date: 27 March 1905
• Citation: 38 So. 104,85 Miss. 702
• Court: Mississippi Supreme Court
• Parties: JOHN K. NUTT, ADMINISTRATOR, v. GERARD BRANDON, ADMINTSTRATOR. THREE CASES. JOHN K. NUTT, ADMINISTRATOR, v. ELIZABETH A. FORSYTHE ET AL. JOHN K. NUTT, ADMINISTRATOR, v. PATRICK HENRY, EXECUTOR

38 So. 104

85 Miss. 702

JOHN K. NUTT, ADMINISTRATOR, v. GERARD BRANDON, ADMINTSTRATOR. THREE CASES.

JOHN K. NUTT, ADMINISTRATOR, v. ELIZABETH A. FORSYTHE ET AL.

JOHN K. NUTT, ADMINISTRATOR, v. PATRICK HENRY, EXECUTOR

Supreme Court of Mississippi

March 27, 1905

November 1904

FROM the chancery court of Adams county, HON. WILLIAM P. S VENTRESS, Chancellor.

The appellee, Brandon, administrator of a deceased heir Mrs Forsythe and others, heirs; and Henry, executor of a deceased heir of Haller Nutt, deceased, of whose estate the appellant John K. Nutt, was the administrator, petitioned the chancery court to compel said administrator to make distribution of money in his hands. The only defense made by the administrator was predicated of the fact that debts of considerable amounts, aggregating $ 90,000, had been probated against the estate, which had not been paid. The petitioners contended, in answer to this defense, that all of said debts were long since barred by the statute of limitation, and this was the only question in the case, and this in turn was resolvable by the inquiry whether the running of the statute against the debts was suspended by the decree, rendered in 1867, adjudging the estate of the decedent insolvent. From a decree ordering distribution, the administrator, Nutt, appealed all of said cases to the supreme court.

Julia A. Nutt was appointed administratrix of the estate of her husband, Haller Nutt, in 1866; and, upon her petition, after notice had been given to the heirs and distributees of that estate, the estate was, at the June term, 1867, of the probate court, declared insolvent; and under that decree Julia A. Nutt, as administratrix, made a sale of all the land belonging to the estate, and reported the sale to the probate court, and the sale was confirmed, and a decree rendered requiring the administratrix to publish notice to creditors of the estate to come forward and prove their claims on or before the first day of November, 1868, or such claims would be barred, and publication was duly made; and there are no further proceedings in the administration of the estate, but claims against the estate of Haller Nutt were registered by creditors, amounting to about $ 90,000. John K. Nutt, present appellant, was subsequently appointed administrator d. b. n. c. t. a. of the estate of Haller Nutt, deceased, and in 1902 received, as such administrator, $ 60,000, the proceeds of a claim against the United States government.

[For a previous report of these cases, see Nutt v. Forsythe et al., 84 Miss. 211, and for reports of cases growing out of the affairs of the same estate, see Knut v. Nutt, 83 Miss. 365, and Nutt v. Knut, 84 Miss. 465.]

Affirmed.

Percy &amp Campbell, for appellant.

Owing to the confusion and uncertainty in the statutes and decisions in regard to the effect of insolvency proceedings in arresting the statute of limitation, the administrator is apprehensive lest a distribution of the estate to the distributees will be followed by an attempt on the part of creditors to make him respond to their stale demands, and it is this apprehension which has impelled him to prosecute this appeal. He asks that the court pass upon the rights of creditors as fully as if such rights were being presented by these creditors who have lain dormant.

J. A. P. Campbell, for the appellees, argued the case orally, and a synopsis of his argument is here given:

Prior to the code of 1857 the statutes prohibited suits against the personal representative of an estate after decree of insolvency. By code of 1857 the prohibition to sue was repealed, and creditors were left free to sue, but according to Whiting v. Parker, 6 How. (Miss.), 352, 359, no execution was allowable. The law thus remained until the code of 1880. The administration of Nutt's estate was begun in 1866, and it was declared insolvent in 1867. There being no hindrance to creditors to sue, the statutes of limitation were operative, and every claim was long since barred. Our...