Pinkstaff v. People of State

• Decision Date: 30 June 1871
• Citation: 1871 WL 8005,59 Ill. 148
• Parties: CHARLES PINKSTAFF et al.v.THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF ILLINOIS, use, etc.
• Court: Illinois Supreme Court

59 Ill. 148

1871 WL 8005 (Ill.)

CHARLES PINKSTAFF et al.

v.THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF ILLINOIS, use, etc.

Supreme Court of Illinois.

June Term, 1871.

OPINION TEXT STARTS HERE

WRIT OF ERROR to the Circuit Court of Crawford county; the Hon. H. B. DECIUS, Judge, presiding.

Mr. E. CALLAHAN, for the plaintiffs in error.

Mr. J. G. BOWMAN and Mr. J. S. PRITCHETT, for the defendants in error.

Mr. CHIEF JUSTICE LAWRENCE delivered the opinion of the Court:

This was an action brought by the guardian of the infant children of Mary E. Hyde, deceased, against the sureties, upon a second or additional bond given by her administrator. The breach in the declaration is, the refusal of the administrator to pay over to the guardian the money belonging to the heirs. A recovery is resisted on the ground, that the assets came into the hands of the administrator, and, as averred in the plea and admitted by the demurrer, were appropriated by him to his own use, before the execution of the second bond. This bond was not given on the application of the sureties in the first bond, under the 79th sec. of the statute, and does not by its terms relate back to the granting of the administration. Its conditions are identical with those of an ordinary administrator's bond, except that, after describing the principal in the bond, as administrator of the “goods and chattels, rights and credits” of the deceased, he is required to make an inventory merely of the “rights and credits” which shall come to his hands, leaving out the words “““goods and chattels.” The effect of this is that when, in a subsequent part of the conditions of the bond, the administrator is required to deliver and pay over to the persons entitled thereto, “all the rest of said goods and chattels,” a grammatical construction would require the words “said goods and chattels,” to be referred to all the goods and chattels which had come to the hands of the administrator, and not merely to those coming to his hands after the giving of the bond. The omission of these words, though possibly accidental, relieves the bond of all merely verbal difficulties, and is consistent with the undoubted design of the parties. That intention must have been to prevent the removal of the administrator, by giving such additional security as would be satisfactory to the probate court, that he would faithfully, in the future, perform the duties of his office. By the terms of the bond, he was to “do and perform all other acts which may be at any time required of him by law.” And if the more specific conditions in the bond would not be sufficient, this general one alone would require him to pay over to the guardian whatever might...