Woolset v. Woolsey

• Decision Date: 18 November 1907
• Parties: WOOLSET et al. v. WOOLSEY et al.
• Court: New Jersey Supreme Court

67 A. 1047

72 N.J.E. 898

WOOLSET et al.

v. WOOLSEY et al.

Court of Errors and Appeals of New Jersey.

Nov. 18, 1907.

(Syllabus by the Court.)

Appeal from Court of Chancery.

Action by Frank Woolsey and James P. Northrup against Virginia M. Woolsey and Alice Woolsey. Decree for defendants, and plaintiffs appeal. Affirmed.

Robert H. McCarter, James Buchanan, and Charles L. Carrick, for appellants. R. V. Lindabury and Randolph Perkins, for respondents.

SWAYZE, J. This is an appeal from a decree of the Chancellor dismissing a bill for an injunction to restrain the enforcement of a decree entered in the Hudson orphans' court pursuant to the mandate of this court. Our former opinion is reported in 68 N. J. Eq. 763, 62 Atl. 686. The ground on which relief is sought is an alleged family arrangement, by which one of the legatees and one having a life estate in a trust fund created by the will are said to have agreed with the executors to vary the order and priority of payment of legacies, and to accept by way of annuities to themselves partial payments of the principal of the legacy and trust fund. The Vice Chancellor held that the matter was res adjudicata, and that he was therefore bound by our former decree.

To sustain this defense, it must appear that the identical matter was involved. Water Commissioners v. Cramer, 61 N. J. Law, 270, 273, 39 Atl. 671, 68 Am. St Rep; 705. Cromwell v. Sac County, 94 U. S. 351, 24 L. Ed. 195. The issue in the orphans' court was presented in the form of exceptions to certain allowances claimed by the executors. All were in the following form: That the sum claimed to have been paid on annuity account was not, in fact, paid by said executors, and said item is improperly credited to said executors, and allowance thereof should not be made.

The point made is that this exception questions only the fact of payment, and not the propriety of the allowance claimed by the executors. We cannot concur in this view. The very last words of the exceptions challenge the propriety of the allowance, and the executors did not at the hearing before the master assert that they were not apprised of any reason for the exception other than the bare denial of payment. Upon the contrary, in their testimony, they sought to justify the allowances claimed, and did not confine themselves to proving the fact of payment. It was manifestly necessary for them to do so, since the burden was on them to prove the propriety of the allowances (Kirby v. Coles, 15 N. J. Law, 441), and the claim of payments on account of annuities as credits against the corpus of the estate necessarily arrested attention. The objection was distinctly stated in the master's report, and, when the present complainants excepted to that report, they in so many words affirmed that the amount was justly and properly paid by the executors under the terms of the will, and should have been allowed by the master. The very form of these exceptions by the accountants themselves presented to the orphans' court the question of the justice and propriety of the allowances which the accountants were bound to establish. The issue now presented is the same. The only difference is in the evidence adduced to sustain it on the part of the accountants. In the present litigation, they set forth with a little more distinctness and care the alleged family arrangement, in which, however, only two of the legatees joined, and one of those a mere life tenant.

Since the issues in the litigations are identical, the only remaining question is whether the orphans' court had jurisdiction to pass upon the attempted justification by the executors of their payments of annuities out of the corpus. By the statute power is conferred on the orphans' court to hear and determine all controversies respecting the allowance of the accounts of executors, administrators, guardians, or trustees (P. L. 1898, p. 715, § 2), and the section providing for exceptions authorizes the court to examine the accountant touching the truth and fairness of the same. The broad language in which the jurisdiction is conferred and the authority to examine as to the fairness of the account authorizes the orphans' court to deal with the account on equitable principles; and we have held that the orphans' court on such accounting may ascertain the condition of the estate as fully as can the Court of Chancery (Pyatt v. Pyatt, 46 N. J. Eq. 285, 288, 18 Atl. 1048), in which it was decided that its powers are sufficiently broad to justify it in allowing a guardian credit for payments for the support of his ward after the latter's majority. This result was reached upon a consideration of the powers exercised by the English Court of Chancery and the New York courts under legislation similar to ours. The Court of Appeals in New York determined the bounds of the jurisdiction of the surrogate upon an administrator's accounting by reference to the jurisdiction of the courts of equity, and Judge Andrews said: "The surrogate's court is a court of limited powers and jurisdiction, but it has jurisdiction to determine questions either legal or equitable arising in the course of proceedings in the execution of powers expressly conferred, and which must be decided therein." Hyland v. Baxter, 98 N. Y. 611. It was there held that the determination of the surrogate, on settlement of an administrator's accounts, denying a claim for advance for support and maintenance of a minor entitled to a share in the estate, was res adjudicata conclusive in an action subsequently brought by the administrator therefor.

In this state the orphans' court and the Court of Chancery have a concurrent jurisdiction in matters of this nature, and it is only where there are special reasons for going into equity that that course is justified. Salter v. Williamson, 2 N. J. Eq. 480, 30 Am. Dec. 513.

In the present case there is no matter of peculiarly equitable cognizance which requires the action of the Court of Chancery. There can, of course, be no question that the accountants upon a proper...