State v. Moore's Estate

• Decision Date: 29 May 1963
• Docket Number: No. 32085,32085
• Citation: 153 So.2d 819
• Parties: The STATE of Florida and Honorable R. D. Hill, County Tax Collector, St. Johns County, Florida, Petitioners, v. ESTATE of Bertha Stone MOORE, deceased, Jean Moore Trudeau, Richard Channing Moore, David Channing Moore and Lewis Rhea Baxter, Executors, Respondents.
• Court: Florida Supreme Court

Page 819

153 So.2d 819

The STATE of Florida and Honorable R. D. Hill, County Tax Collector, St. Johns County, Florida, Petitioners, v. ESTATE of Bertha Stone MOORE, deceased, Jean Moore Trudeau, Richard Channing Moore, David Channing Moore and Lewis Rhea Baxter, Executors, Respondents.

No. 32085.

Supreme Court of Florida.

May 29, 1963.

Richard W. Ervin, Atty. Gen., Edward S. Jaffry and A. G. Spicola, Asst. Attys. Gen., for petitioners.

Lewis Rhea Baxter, Jacksonville, for respondents.

THOMAS, Justice.

This controversy comes to the Supreme Court under Sec. 4 of Art. V of the Constitution, F.S.A. via petition for certiorari in which it is claimed that a decision of the District Court of Appeal, First District, conflicts with a decision of this court expressed in Heidt v. Caldwell, Fla., 41 So.2d 303, inasmuch as it was held in the cited case that Sec. 733.16, Florida Statutes 1959, F.S.A., did not apply to claims of the State of Florida, while in the instant case the District Court of Appeal held exactly the opposite.

The statute, so far as it relates to the present issue, required, until its amendment in 1961, that all demands against an estate would be void unless filed within eight months after the first publication of notice to creditors.

It was on 9 November 1959 that the notice to creditors of the estate of Bertha Stone Moore was first published; it was on 30 December 1960 that the Tax Collector of St. Johns County filed the claim of the State of Florida for intangible taxes in the approximate sum of three thousand six hundred dollars. Soon after, an objection to the claim was made and motion to strike it was filed. The County Judge ruled the claim invalid because it was not presented within the period specified in the statute.

The matter was then taken to the District Court of Appeal where it was observed that the lone point for decision was whether or not the statute of non claim was applicable to claims of the State. The court referred to a decision of the Supreme Court of Florida, United States v. Summerlin, 140 Fla. 475, 191 So. 842, that the United States and its agencies were subject to the law the same as other creditors of estates, and to an opinion of the Supreme Court of the United States reversing the Summerlin judgment, United States v. Summerlin, 310 U.S. 414, 60 S.Ct. 1019, 84 L.Ed. 1283, and holding that such statutes were not apposite when claims of the sovereign were involved. The Supreme Court of Florida later held, on the authority of United States v. Summerlin, supra, that a claim of the United States was not barred although untimely and reversed an order of the county judge to the contrary. United States v. Embrey, 145 Fla. 277, 199 So. 41.

The District Court of Appeal opined that all claims except those of the United States were void unless filed within the time specified in the statute.

The appellants, now petitioners, contended that the philosophy of the cases determined by the Supreme Court of the United States excepting claims of the United States was entirely appropriate in dealing with claims of the State of Florida and relied upon the decision in Heidt v. Caldwell, supra, to buttress their position.

This brings us to an analysis of the Heidt case which the petitioners insist is in direct conflict with the decision by the District Court of Appeal in the immediate controversy. In considering the main question in dispute, the responsibility of the estate of a former inmate of the State Hospital for the Insane for the cost of the patient's maintenance and treatement, the court said that no language could be found in Sec. 733.16 that would prevent the State from recovering for the expense of supporting the insane decedent. But in relating the salient facts of the case the court stated that it was admitted that the claim had been filed within the period designated in the statute. In the discussion there appeared this sentence: 'The language of this Section is not made applicable to the State of Florida.' The court in the Heidt decision also cited the opinion in Florida Industrial Commission v. Felda Lumber Co. et al., 154 Fla. 507, 18 So.2d 362, in which it was declared that statutes of liminations will not affect claims of the State unless by express language they so provide.

Bearing in mind that decision on the applicability or inapplicability of the statute of non claim was not even relevant to the issues which were confined to the validity of Sec. 5 of Chapter 4357, Acts of 1895, providing that incompetents financially able to pay their way should do so, and the availability of the Statute of Limitations as a defense to the action by the Board of Commissioners of State Institutions to recover the cost of caring for the decedent at the hospital, not to mention the distinction between statutes of limitations and those of non claim we recognized in In Re Estate of Brown, deceased, Gulf Fertilizer Co. v. Robinson, Fla., 117 So.2d 478, it is obvious that the comment of the court in the Heidt case anent Sec. 733.16 was beside the point, that the words we have just quoted were obiter dicta. The respondents here term the observations 'a nullity.' The reference to the statute must have been inadvertent as the subject of non claim was completely dissociated from the matter with which the court was dealing.

The Attorney General replies that the court in treating of the jurisdictional ...