Reynolds v. McMullen

• Decision Date: 14 January 1885
• Citation: 22 N.W. 41,55 Mich. 568
• Court: Michigan Supreme Court
• Parties: REYNOLDS v. MCMULLEN.

22 N.W. 41

55 Mich. 568

REYNOLDS v. MCMULLEN.

Supreme Court of Michigan

January 14, 1885

Appeal from Gratiot, in chancery.

SHERWOOD J., dissenting.

Smith & Sessions, for complainant.

Spaulding & Barker, for defendants and appellants.

COOLEY, C.J.

Some time in the year 1872, Warren A. Sherwood, who had previously been a citizen of Michigan, went to St. Louis, Missouri where he engaged in business. He was a bachelor and took board at a hotel, and on March 27, 1876, died at the hotel intestate. He left a number of heirs at law, one of whom resided in New York, one in Minnesota, and all the others in Michigan. He left some land in Michigan and some debts, and he was owner at the time of his death of demands to the amount of upwards of $50,000, which were secured by mortgages on lands in Michigan. Among the mortgages was one given to secure a note made October 8, 1874, by William and Mary Lusk for $1,125 and interest, payable at St. Louis, Missouri, or at such other place as Sherwood, to whom it was given, should elect, in five years from date. On the death of Sherwood, Matrom D. Lewis, claiming to act as public administrator for the city and county of St. Louis, took immediate possession of his personal assets, and claimed a right to administer upon them. The relatives of Sherwood were not present at the time, but the residence of those in Michigan was known, and Lewis immediately communicated with them by telegraph, and sent the body to them in compliance with their request. The relatives at once proceeded to have letters of administration taken out in Michigan, and Albert G. Russell, a brother-in-law of the deceased, was appointed administrator by the probate court for the county of Ionia, on May 29, 1876, and duly qualified as such. After his appointment and qualification, Russell called upon Lewis for the property belonging to the estate, but Lewis refused to surrender it, and persisted in his claim of the right to administer himself.

In June, 1878, Lewis made public sale of the securities belonging to the estate, and they were sold, for the most part, for merely nominal sums. The Lusk note and mortgage, which were perfectly good securities, sold better than most of the others, and were bid off by one Flanagan for $80. The purchasers were notified before sale was made that the right of Lewis to sell was disputed, and that Russell, as administrator, claimed the securities. Flanagan subsequently gave an assignment of the mortgage to one Barr, and Barr executed a discharge of it on receiving $600, or about one-half the amount due. The defendant McMullen has since become purchaser of the land, and claims to hold and own it discharged of the mortgage. Russell, the Michigan administrator, continued to act as such until September, 1878, when he died; and complainant was appointed and qualified as his successor. The present suit was then instituted, the purpose of which is to foreclose the Lusk mortgage. The defendants rely upon the proceedings by Lewis, the sale to Flanagan, and the subsequent assignment to and discharge by Barr. Decree was rendered in the court below in favor of complainant, and defendants appeal.

It is disputed by complainant that Sherwood, at the time of his decease, was domiciled in St. Louis, but on the evidence we are inclined to think that city must be deemed to have been his domicile, and we shall so assume throughout this opinion. The questions of importance in the case will then be: First, whether Lewis, as public administrator, had authority of law to take upon himself administration of Sherwood's estate; and if so, then, second, whether, under the circumstances, he had power as such administrator to sell and assign the mortgage in suit. If either of these questions is answered in the negative it will be fatal to the defense. The office of public administrator is statutory in Missouri, and the statute contemplates action by him in the settlement of estates only in a few exceptional cases which are particularly specified. The statutory provision which was in force at the time of Sherwood's death was the following: "It shall be the duty of the public administrator to take into his charge and custody the estates of all deceased persons in his county in the following instances: (1) When a stranger dies intestate in the county, without relatives, or dies leaving a will, and the executor named is absent or fails to qualify; (2) when persons die intestate without any known heirs; (3) when persons unknown die or are found dead in the county; (4) when money, property, papers, or other estate are left in a situation exposed to loss or damage, and no other person administers on the same; (5) when any estate of any person who dies intestate therein, or elsewhere, is left in the county, liable to be injured, wasted, or lost, when said intestate does not leave a known husband, widow, or heir in this state; (6) when from any good cause said court shall order him to take possession of any estate to prevent its being injured, wasted, purloined, or lost." Wagner's St.1868, (Ed.1872,) p. 122, � 8.

Unless the case was such as to fall within one of these six classes, it is not pretended that Lewis had any right to intermeddle as public administrator. That Sherwood was not a stranger in St. Louis is conceded. He was well known there, and his name appeared in the directory as a business man of the city. His case did not, therefore, come within the first subdivision of the section above recited, or within the third.

Sherwood did not die without known heirs. His heirs were well known, and Lewis himself communicated with them immediately. The case was, therefore, not within the second subdivision above recited. If Lewis was justified in interfering at all, it must have been under the fourth or fifth subdivisions of the section, and for the protection of the estate. But the fourth could not justify him, because the relatives of Sherwood immediately offered to take charge of the estate, and would have done so, but for his interference. They did, in fact, as soon as was practicable, take out letters of administration in Michigan, where they were particularly needed, and would no doubt have done the same in Missouri had it become necessary. If they had failed to do so, any creditor in Missouri, whose claim was not provided for, might have taken out letters on his own behalf. No showing is made in the case that for any purpose of protecting the estate it was necessary or important that the public administrator should interfere; and his seizure of the effects and papers of the deceased, and the subsequent sale of the assets for a trifling percentage of their value, constituted a wholly unnecessary and reckless intermeddling with private rights, which the statute of Missouri never intended to authorize, and which the enlightened tribunals of that state must have visited with condemnation, had their action been invoked to authorize or sanction what was done. If the public administrator could lawfully administer in defiance of the wishes of the family, he must have had the right in any case in which he could reach the bed of death and seize the personal effects before the family could anticipate him.

We keep in mind the fact, in what we say in this connection, that Lewis was acting on his own motion, and without the previous authorization of any court. Had the proper probate court of Missouri, on being applied to, granted letters of administration on the estate of a person who had died when domiciled within the jurisdiction, a collateral attack upon its proceedings could not be countenanced. But this public officer acted without letters, and was his own judge of the right to do so. Those who claim under an administration which is not judicially ordered, are entitled to no presumptions in support of its authority. Illinois Cent. R. Co. v. Cragin, 71 Ill. 177. In this case the failure to show jurisdiction is complete. There could not well be a more unnecessary, wanton, and injurious interference with the rights of others than this record discloses. But we do not place our judgment in this case exclusively upon this ground, because we think if Lewis, as public administrator, had authority to act, he had none under the facts disclosed, to make sale of the mortgage.

We concede to the fullest extent the general principle relied upon by defendants that personal property, in contemplation of law, accompanies the person of the owner, and that its disposition on his death is to be determined by the laws of his domicile. But while the rule of distribution is thus determined, the steps to reach it may be otherwise prescribed; and when the property is in one jurisdiction and the domicile in another, the necessity for distinct proceedings in administration may be imperative. The proceedings, when taken in this class of cases, are governed and regulated by certain rules of interstate comity, which are thus stated by the court of appeals of New York: "It is an established doctrine, not only of international law but of the municipal law of this country, that personal property has no locality. It is subject to the law which governs the person of the owner, as well in respect to the disposition of it by act inter vivos as to its transmission by last will and testament, and by succession on the owner dying intestate. The principle, no doubt, has its foundation in international comity, but it is equally obligatory as a rule of decision in the courts as a legal rule of purely domestic origin. It does not belong to the judges to recognize or to deny the rights which individuals may claim under it at their pleasure or caprice; but it having obtained the force of law by user and acquiescence, it belongs to the political government of ...