Taylor v. Trefrey

• Decision Date: 04 April 1933
• Citation: 282 Mass. 555,185 N.E. 1
• Parties: TAYLOR v. TREFREY et al.
• Court: United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court

282 Mass. 555

185 N.E. 1

TAYLOR

v.TREFREY et al.

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, Middlesex.

April 4, 1933.

Appeal from Probate Court, Middlesex County; Charles N. Harris, Judge.

Proceedings in the matter of the estate of William F. Trefrey, deceased, wherein Warner V. Taylor, executor, filed a first and final account, opposed by Elizabeth S. Trefrey and others. From a decree of the probate court disallowing an item for services in accordance with special agreement, the executor appeals.

Decree affirmed.

H. Parker and L. S. Thierry, both of Boston, for petitioner.

C. L. Newton and B. L. Hill, both of Boston, for respondents.

LUMMUS, Justice.

Warner V. Taylor appeals from a decree of the probate court disallowing an item of $20,000 ‘for services in accordance with special agreement,’ for which he asked credit in Schedule B of his first and final account as executor of the will of William F. Trefrey.

When Trefrey died in June, 1929, holding seven hundred sixty-four shares of stock in W. S. Quinby Company, a corporation engaged in the coffee business, Warner V. Taylor was president of that corporation and one of three executors and trustees under the will of W. S. Quinby, who had died about eight months before owning three thousand three hundred sixty-two shares of said stock out of five thousand eight hundred nine shares issued. The inventory of the Trefrey estate showed $353,657.29, of which $289,792.00 consisted of stock in that corporation, valued at nearly $380 a share. The stock, however, was closely held and not readily marketable, and the respondent Elizabeth S. Trefrey, the widow and residuary legatee of said Trefrey, was anxious to turn her holdings into money. Shortly after the death of Trefrey, negotiations began for the sale of all the stock of the corporation to new interests. The sale was finally effected on September 26, 1931, under a complicated contract, and produced somewhat more than $300 a share. There was ample evidence that the appellant did not have much to do with the success of the negotiations leading up to the sale, and that the burden of effort rested on brokers employed on commission. See Blake v. Pegram, 101 Mass. 592, 599, 600.

The accountant made a charge of $15,000 as his ‘fee as executor by special agreement,’ and this sum was allowed without dispute. He rests his claim to $20,000 more upon a talk in May, 1931, in which the respondent Elizabeth S. Trefrey expressed her satisfaction with a total charge of $35,000 by the accountant, and upon two unsealed writings signed by her on September 14, 1931 and September 19, 1931, in the first...