Willworth v. Leonard

• Decision Date: 09 May 1892
• Citation: 31 N.E. 299,156 Mass. 277
• Parties: WILLWORTH SAME v. LEONARD. SAME v. RICHARDS.
• Court: United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court

156 Mass. 277

31 N.E. 299

WILLWORTH SAME v. LEONARD. SAME v. RICHARDS.

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, Suffolk.

May 9, 1892

COUNSEL

I.D. Van Duzee, for appellants.

C.R Morse, for appellee.

OPINION

MORTON J.

It appears that Joseph Willworth, then of Boston, was adjudged insane, after due notice and hearing by the probate court of Suffolk county, December 12, 1881, and his wife was appointed his guardian. On the 31st May, 1888, he petitioned for the removal of his guardian for unsuitableness; and on the 15th June, 1888, further petitioned that she should be discharged on the ground that the guardianship was no longer necessary. Both petitions were dismissed by the probate court, and he appealed to the supreme judicial court, in which, on May 27 1890, decrees were entered affirming the decree of the probate court dismissing the petition for discharge of the guardianship, but reversing that on the petition for removal and removing her, and remitting both cases to the probate court for further proceedings. ^[1] On May 28, 1890, a petition was presented to the probate court at Cambridge, alleging that Willworth was an inhabitant or resident of Cambridge, and asking for the appointment of one Avis Willworth as guardian. This petition was assented to by Willworth, but the probate court dismissed it. The lease in question was made July 7, 1890. The defendants have introduced no evidence except the copies relating to their various proceedings, and they contend that it appears from them that the decree by which Willworth was adjudged insane is in force, and has never been revoked or modified, except so far as the removal of the guardian may have modified it, and that the lease was therefore ineffectual to pass to the plaintiff an interest in the premises described in it, because the decree conclusively shows that Willworth was insane when it was made. We think this position cannot be sustained. The removal of the guardian terminated the guardianship. Harding v. Weld, 128 Mass. 591; Chapin v. Livermore, 13 Gray, 562; Allis v. Morton, 4 Gray, 63; Loring v. Alline, 9 Cush. 70. Sending the case back to the probate court for further proceedings did not qualify the terminating effect of the removal. It was a disposition of the case made necessary by the fact that it was in the hands of an appellate court. A new notice and a new hearing were necessary in the probate court to the appointment of another guardian. The court could not proceed on the strength of the former hearing and decree. Harding v. Weld, supra; Allis v. Morton, supra. The title to the property remained all the time in the ward, and the guardian could make no contract relating to the property that would bind him when the guardianship ceased. Hicks v. Chapman, 10 Allen, 463. So long as the guardianship continued, the decree of the probate court may well have been regarded as conclusive on the question of the ward's sanity, on the ground that the decree fixed the ward's status as to all the world, and also because it might greatly have embarrassed the executors of his trust if the guardian could have been compelled to try the question of his ward's sanity in every action for or against him. White v. Palmer, 4 Cush. 147; Leonard v. Leonard, 14 Pick. 280; Leggate v. Clark, 111 Mass. 310. But when the guardianship has terminated, and a controversy has arisen between third parties, one of whom claims under a contract made with the ward after the termination of the guardianship, the...