Phillips v. Meagher

• Decision Date: 21 May 1896
• Citation: 44 N.E. 136,166 Mass. 152
• Parties: PHILLIPS v. MEAGHER et al.
• Court: United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court

166 Mass. 152

44 N.E. 136

PHILLIPS v. MEAGHER et al.

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, Suffolk.

May 21, 1896

The above-entitled cause came on to be heard upon two motions, the defendant having been defaulted,--one a motion of the plaintiff to charge the alleged trustee, Mary Meagher; and the other, her motion to be discharged. The said trustee answered "No funds," and interrogatories to her and her sworn answers thereto had been filed and duly presented and read; and it appeared therefrom that the said Mary Meagher, alleged trustee, had at one time the sum of $1,933 belonging to the defendant John Meagher who is her husband, in her possession, but she claimed in her answers that the said money was, long before the bringing of the plaintiff's writ, expended, with the consent of her husband, for the support and maintenance of herself and their minor children. It appeared that John Meagher had been an insane ward of the state since 1888, although now declared to be cured. The plaintiff offered said John Meagher as a witness, for the purpose of contradicting the answers of said trustee in two particulars: First, by showing that the amount which had come into her hands and possession was larger than the amount stated by her in answer to said interrogatories and, second, for the purpose of showing that he never consented to or directed the use of said money for the support of the family, as she stated therein, and that the money which she acknowledged to have received was never so used, but was still in some form in her possession. All this evidence was excluded. It was held to be inadmissible, under section 17 of chapter 183 of the Public Statutes, to which ruling the plaintiff excepted.

COUNSEL

John P. Leahy, for plaintiff.

T.J Enright and Frederick A. Fisher, for Mary Meagher, alleged trustee.

OPINION

LATHROP J.

Pub.St c. 183, § 17, provide as follows: "The answers and statements sworn to by a trustee shall be considered as true in deciding how far he is chargeable, but either party may allege and prove any facts, not stated or denied by the trustee, that may be material in deciding that question." These provisions were first enacted in Rev.St. c. 109, § 15, and have since been in force. Gen.St. c. 142, § 11. The law prior to the Revised Statutes is accurately stated by the commissioners in their note to section 15. Although neither St.1794, c. 65, nor St.1817, c. 148, expressly provided that the answers and statements of a trustee should be considered as true in deciding how far he was chargeable, this was early asserted to be the intent of the framers of the first statute, and collateral evidence was not admitted unless the trustee saw fit to incorporate it in his answer. Comstock v. Farnum, 2 Mass. 96; Barker v. Tabor, 4 Mass. 81; Stackpole v. Newman, Id. 85; Whitman v. Hunt, Id. 272; Hatch v. Smith, 5 Mass. 42, 49; Minchin v. Moore, 11 Mass. 90; Wood v. Partridge, Id. 488; Willard v. Sturtevant, 7 Pick. 194; Hawes v. Langton, 8 Pick. 67; ...