Watkins v. Stewart

• Decision Date: 06 December 1883
• Parties: WATKINS v. STEWART AND ALS.
• Court: Virginia Supreme Court

78 Va. 111

WATKINS v. STEWART AND ALS.

Supreme Court of Appeals of Virginia.

December 6, 1883

Appeal from decree of corporation court of city of Alexandria rendered 13th October, 1880, in cause wherein Virginia Stewart is complainant and J. C. O'Neal, administrator of John T. Evans, Sr., deceased; Mary C. Watkins, and others are defendants.

The object of this suit was to hold the administrator accountable for $6,000 of the bonds of the W. & O. Railroad Company and a note for $4,000 on said company and secured by $12,000 of said bonds, which in 1875 were appraised at seventy cents in the dollar, but which, by sudden default of the company became entirely worthless in 1877. The court below exonerated the administrator from liability, and Mary C. Watkins, one of the distributees, obtained an appeal to this court.

Opinion states the facts.

John M. Johnson, for the appellant.

S. F. Beach and H. O. Claughton, for the appellees.

OPINION

HINTON, J.

Some time prior to the 16th of October, 1875, John T. Evans, Sr., died intestate, whereupon J. C. O'Neal qualified as his administrator, and promptly returned and had recorded the inventory and appraisement required by law.

On the 2d of October, 1879, Virginia Stewart, a daughter and distributee of the said Evans, instituted this suit. In her bill she alleges that her late father had four children, amongst whom she includes the appellant, Mary C. Watkins, and a son, John T. Evans, Jr., who had not been heard of for seven years, and who was believed to be dead; that the administrator had made a partial distribution of the personal estate in his hands, but retained one-fourth part thereof, the distributive share of the said John T. Evans, Jr., as if he were alive. It then avers that the plaintiff and her two sisters are willing to give the refunding bonds provided by law, and prays that the administrator may be decreed to pay her one-third of the distributive share of the said John T. Evans, Jr., on the terms prescribed by the statute in such cases made and provided. In the progress of the cause the administrator was directed to settle an administration account. The commissioner with his report returns two accounts, in one of which the administrator is charged with the appraised value of $6,000 of Washington and Ohio R. R. Co.'s bonds and the note for $4,000; but in the other he is not, and this last mentioned account the court, by a decree entered on the 30th October, 1880, confirmed. The error assigned here, and the only question we have to consider, is the failure of the court below to charge these two items against the administrator.

As to the propriety of the exclusion of the first item--namely, the $6,0000 of W. & O. R. R. Co.'s bonds--I have very little doubt. The evidence, returned by the commissioner with his report and account, shows that the administrator had been repeatedly requested by two of the distributees and their husbands not to sell these bonds; that they were paying a good rate of interest; and that the administrator and the two above mentioned distributees thought they were likely to appreciate in value. Prompted by these considerations, the administrator held on to these bonds until the collapse of the road in April, 1877, when they became valueless. Under such circumstances, the administrator cannot be held liable. In Marsden v. Kent, 5 Law Rep., Chy. Div., 598, a stronger case than the one under review, the executors were held not to be liable. In that case James, L. J., said " The executors were entitled to wait twelve months before they converted them," meaning the bonds " At that time the market had fallen. They hoped it would rise, and therefore delayed the sale, a course of proceeding which has resulted in a loss. The executors acted with no view of obtaining any benefit to themselves; … they appear to have acted honestly with a view to what they thought beneficial to everybody interested. ...