Powell v. Stratton
| Decision Date | 23 November 1854 |
| Citation | 52 Va. 792 |
| Court | Virginia Supreme Court |
| Parties | POWELL v. STRATTON & als. |
1. Under the circumstances a person who had qualified as administrator of an estate in Mississippi, held to account for his administration in Virginia.
2. An administrator in Mississippi having purchased for the estate land sold for the payment of a debt due to the estate, held under the circumstances not bound to keep the land and account for the price; but the land is to be treated as the property of the estate.
3. Under the circumstances the administrator not responsible for money which became worthless in his hands by the insolvency of the bank.
This was a suit in equity in the Circuit court of Powhatan county and afterwards removed to the Circuit court of Goochland instituted by Elizabeth Stratton the widow, and three others the infant children of Milner S. Stratton, against Benjamin H. Powell and Henry Gordon, to recover moneys of the estate of Milner S. Stratton, which the plaintiffs alleged Powell had collected in the state of Mississippi.
Powell demurred to the bill on various grounds, and among others, on the ground that the court had no jurisdiction to compel him to account for his administration upon the estate of Milner S. Stratton in Mississippi. He also answered, stating in detail his action in his efforts to collect the debts due to that estate.
On the 16th of October 1839, Henry Gordon and Elizabeth Stratton the personal representatives of Milner S. Stratton in Virginia, entered into a contract under seal with Benjamin H. Powell, by which they employed Powell to go to Mississippi for the purpose of collecting certain debts due in that state to their testator's estate. One was a large debt of about twelve thousand dollars due from John D. King and Samuel M. Puckett, which was secured by a deed of trust on land and slaves. Another was a debt due by account from Richard M. Hobson, for about two thousand three hundred and sixty-five dollars and eighty-one cents; and a third was a certificate of deposit for six hundred dollars of the Brandon Bank.
Powell went to Mississippi, and arrived in Jackson about the 1st of December 1839; and finding it would be necessary to become the administrator of Milner S. Stratton, he qualified as such about the end of the month of December. He found King, Puckett and Hobson insolvent, though Puckett had a number of slaves in his possession, which he shortly after carried out of the state. These slaves were included in the deed of trust to secure Stratton's debt; and Powell attempted to prevent Puckett's removal of them by an injunction; but the judge to whom he applied for the injunction, held that he could only grant it when his court was in session; and before that time the slaves were gone.
In order to enforce the collection of the debt due from King and Puckett, Powell directed the trustees Richard M. Hobson and William R. Crane to proceed to sell the land embraced in the deed; which they did accordingly. Powell having a short time previous to the sale broken his leg, could not be present himself; but believing as he says in his answer, that it was important to get the land out of the possession of Puckett, and to keep the purchase money out of the possession of Hobson, he authorized Thomas P. Nash to attend the sale and buy in the land for the benefit of the estate of Stratton. Nash did attend and buy the land at the price of four dollars and twelve and a half cents an acre; making the whole purchase money amount to two thousand seven and forty-seven dollars and twenty-five cents: and the trustees in Powell's absence conveyed the land to him. This item was the principal subject of controversy in this suit; Powell insisting that the land was purchased for the estate, and the other parties insisting that it was a purchase for himself. The evidence shows that the land was sold for greatly more than land equally good had been sold for, and could be purchased for, in the part of country where it lies. The sheriff of the county says, that such lands had sold for fifty cents and a dollar per acre; and no one estimates it higher. It seems too that there was but one other bidder for the land; and he was the agent of Puckett. It appeared too that when Powell heard the land had been conveyed to him personally, he said it was an error, and wished to have it corrected; but was advised by his counsel that it was a matter of no importance. And it was further proved that certainly Dr. Gordon, and probably Mrs. Stratton, had been informed by Powell, upon his return to Virginia from Mississippi, that the land had been purchased for Stratton's estate.
As before stated, Powell found, on getting to Mississippi, that Richard M. Hobson was insolvent. All that he could obtain from him in satisfaction of his debt to Stratton, was the assignment of a debt due to him from another person, which that other person could only pay in money of the Brandon Bank. This, as he could do no better, he accepted. In his answer he says, the Brandon money so received, and that embraced in the certificate of deposit, never was disposed of by him; and he never could obtain for it specie funds or Virginia money, at any discount, however great. On the 6th of February 1840 he deposited what he so received, as well as six hundred dollars which was before in the bank, making the sum of two thousand six hundred and three dollars and seventy-eight cents in the Brandon Bank, and took a certificate of the deposit.
It appears that when Powell first arrived in Mississippi, in December 1839, Brandon money was very much depreciated: One of the witnesses for the plaintiffs states, that during the first part of the year 1839, it was worth about fifty cents on the dollar, in exchange for other Mississippi money, which was somewhat below par; but they had not a fixed exchangeable value; and by the 1st of May had depreciated to forty cents in the dollar; and continued gradually to depreciate during the summer, and were worth about twenty-five cents about the month of October; about which time judgments to a very large amount, probably to about half a million, were obtained against the bank, and its issues depreciated more rapidly; and on the 1st of January 1840, it was worth from about five to ten cents, having no fixed value, and shortly afterwards became wholly worthless, and had so continued. Two other witnesses for the defendant say, that they cannot say that Brandon money was, in the latter part of 1839 and the beginning of 1840, worth any particular amount in specie funds or Virginia money. They did not think it was possible to have purchased with Brandon money, more than a few dollars in specie or Virginia money, at any rate of discount. Notwithstanding its enormous depreciation, it continued to be received at its nominal value, to a considerable extent, by collecting officers and others in ordinary business transactions, until some time in the spring of 1840, when it suddenly commenced to go down, and soon got to be regarded universally as worthless. Many persons continued to receive it up to that time, confiding in the assurances of the managers of the bank, that the return of sales of cotton, which the bank had shipped to Europe, would give it the means of redeeming its paper. And it was proved that in the year 1840, the president of the bank and other directors declared that in the end the bank would be solvent and its notes at par.
The plaintiffs filed in the cause two letters from Powell to Henry Gordon. The first from Jackson in Mississippi, dated December 1st, 1839, a few days after he arrived there. In it he says, The second from the same place written just after he qualified as administrator on Stratton's estate, and dated December 27th, 1839. In it he says, ...
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