Ramseyer v. Datson

• Decision Date: 08 July 1935
• Citation: 120 Fla. 414,162 So. 904
• Parties: RAMSEYER v. DATSON et al.
• Court: Florida Supreme Court

162 So. 904

120 Fla. 414

RAMSEYER v. DATSON et al.

Florida Supreme Court

July 8, 1935

En Banc.

Suit by A. C. Ramseyer against Alice A. Datson and others individually and as executors of the estate of B. C. Datson deceased, for an accounting. From an order dismissing the bill, plaintiff appeals.

Reversed and remanded for further proceedings.

See also, Hornbeek v. Datson, 162 So. 908. Appeal from Circuit Court, Orange County; Frank A. Smith, judge.

COUNSEL

George P. Garrett, of Orlando, for appellant.

G. Wayne Gray, of Orlando, for appellees.

OPINION

DAVIS Justice.

A. C. Ramseyer was a creditor of the estate of one B. C. Datson, who died testate in Orange county in June, 1926. Alice A. Datson and Clarence Datson qualified under his will as executors of his estate. Ramseyer, holding a claim against the Datson estate for $13,445, presented his claim to the Datson executors for allowance and payment. Such presentation was made within one year after Datson's death, but the claim was not filed with the county judge of the county until June 20, 1927.

On June 10, 1926, notice to creditors had been published requiring the filing of claims against the Datson estate within one year. During the time allowed for filing claims as specified in said notice and by Florida law, the executors carried on and managed the dairy and farming business of the deceased testate and purported to take account of the deceased's debts for settlement purposes.

So it was that some time prior to June 20, 1927, which was the date upon which the Ramseyer claim was physically filed with the county judge, and well within a year after the qualification of the executors, such executors were given full knowledge of plaintiff's claim and not only received it and admitted its correctness as a claim against the Datson estate, but in order to evidence their acknowledgment of it, executed in favor of Ramseyer three notes dated January 7, 1927, as security for the payment of the claim so acknowledged.

Subsequent to the execution and delivery of said promissory notes and the payment of certain interest thereon, the claimant, A. C. Ramseyer, filed a petition in the county judge's court of Orange county, Fla., setting up his claim that the executors had acknowledged and praying that it be approved also by the county judge as a claim duly filed.

On January 31, 1928, the county judge entered a formal order decreeing that A. C. Ramseyer's claim be considered as legally filed and docketed and that it constitute and be a valid and subsisting claim against the Datson estate, as if filed within twelve months next succeeding the publication of the notice to creditors as aforementioned. So far as appears, the executors acquiesced in the county judge's order just mentioned.

The claim of Ramseyer as comprehended within the order of the county judge entered January 31, 1928, and as previously presented to and acknowledged as valid by the executors themselves, although not at that time filed with the county judge as provided for by sections 5597-5600, C. G. L., section 3732, R. G. S., section 4648, C. G. L., section 2928, R. G. S., was for a long time after the county judge's order aforesaid recognized and respected by the executors who in consideration thereof incorporated reference to Ramseyer's claim in their executors' reports and in said reports apparently assumed the unquestioned rightness and validity thereof.

After all of the foregoing had transpired, the appellees-executors in their capacities as such, and also acting as individuals who had given their notes to evidence Ramseyer's claim, subsequently repudiated their personal and official actions in the premises, and in defense to the suit of Ramseyer in the court below brought against them in equity based on a suggestion of devastavit of the Datson estate, because of their refusal to settle or account with respect to the Ramseyer claim aforesaid, now dispute the validity of the county judge's order of January 31, 1928, as well as the validity of the claim itself, on the ground that such claim was not duly sworn to and filed with the county judge within one year from date of first publication of notice as provided by the 1925 and 1927 Florida Statutes hereinafter cited.

The circuit judge, in dismissing appellant's bill in the court below, gave as his reasons for such dismissal the following:

'The conduct of the executors in said cause was not such as to take the claim of A. C. Ramseyer out of the statute, C. G. L. 5597 to 5600, inclusive. Hence the claim of A. C. Ramseyer was barred by failure of A. C. Ramseyer to file the same with the County Judge within the time fixed by said statute. The County Judge's order purporting to validate the presentation of the claim does not affect the situation. Since the claim of A. C. Ramseyer was not presented within the time fixed by said statute, it is barred under C. G. L. § 4648, and under the three year statute, section 4663.'

We think the circuit judge erred in dismissing the bill for the reason given by him in his decree, and that he should have decided the complainant's case on its merits as developed by the pleaded issues and supporting evidence.

It has long been the declared law of this state that the actual presentation of a claim for payment to the personal representative of a deceased debtor, when not denied or contested by such representative as being a good and valid presentation of such claim against the estate, stops the operation of the general statute of limitation as well as the statute of nonclaim, at least so long as the personal representative remains undischarged as such, and is still engaged in the process of liquidating the estate because it has never been finally wound up. Barnes v. Scott, 29 Fla. 285, 11 So. 48. So where it appears that a claim has been actually made out and presented to the personal representative of a decedent's estate, and that it was at the time thereof affirmatively accepted as a validly presented...