Yaple et al. v. Titus et al.

• Citation: 41 Pa. 195
• Parties: Yaple <I>et al. versus</I> Titus <I>et al.</I>
• Decision Date: 06 January 1862
• Court: Pennsylvania Supreme Court

41 Pa. 195

Yaple et al. versus Titus et al.

Supreme Court of Pennsylvania.

January 6, 1862.

ERROR to the Common Pleas of Erie county.

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

John H. Walker, for plaintiffs.—The question presented is, have the committee appointed by the court to take care of the person and property of a lunatic, power, on an order issued by the court, to sell the real estate of the lunatic after his death? And it depends upon the construction to be given to the Acts of Assembly by which the committee are appointed, and by which their powers are given.

The 14th section of the Act of June 13th 1836, "relating to lunatics and habitual drunkards," gives to the committee no authority over the estate after the death of the lunatic. The court may appoint one person to take care of the person and another of the estate, but evidently the enactment intends that the authority in both cases shall end with the death of the lunatic.

The 18th section gives the management of the real estate of the lunatic to the committee to pay debts, support the lunatic and his family, and educate his minor children.

The 22d section authorizes the Court of Common Pleas, having jurisdiction of the accounts of the committee of such person, if the personal estate be deficient, to make an order empowering such committee to sell at public sale, or mortgage such parts of

the same as the said court shall deem expedient. But no such order shall be made unless the application of the committee for the same be accompanied with certain statements and estimates which evidently contemplate a sale of the real estate during the life of the lunatic, because it provides for the sale of the real estate to realize a sum for the support of the lunatic, for the support of his family, and for the education of his children.

The 41st section, instead of authorizing the sale of the real estate after the death of the lunatic, provides that the death of the lunatic terminates the trust.

It is evident that no section of this act empowers the court to authorize the committee to sell the real estate after the death of the lunatic. It calls the interest the committee has over the person and property of the lunatic, a trust; and it expressly enacts that death terminates that trust. Cannot this be inquired into collaterally?

De Gray, C. J., in the Duchess of Kingston Case, 11 State Trials 261, lays down the rule which our courts have followed: 4 Watts 183; Lockhart v. Johns, 7 Barr 139; Painter v. Henderson, Id. 48.

It is not contended that the judgment or decree of a court can be inquired into, much less reversed collaterally, unless there was fraud, or the court had no jurisdiction.

In this case there is no allegation that there was any fraud in effecting the sale of the real estate of Timothy Fuller by Weed and Butler, but that the Court of Common Pleas of Erie county could not, after the death of Mr. Fuller, order the sale of his real estate. That order was a nullity. The jurisdiction of the Common Pleas ended, and immediately upon his death the title of the real estate become vested in the plaintiffs, his legal representatives. That the Acts of Assembly only empowered the court to invest the committee with a trust, and that death ended the trust, except to settle for what had been done.

In Griffith v. Frazier, 8 Cranch 9, and McPherson v. Cunliff, 11 S. & R. 430, it is ruled that letters of administration on the estate of a living person are void. In Caldwell v. Waters, 6 Harris 79, Winter v. Perry, Cro. Eliz. 199, and Campbell v. Kent, 3 Penn. R. 80, it was held that a sale of real estate upon a void judgment can be inquired into collaterally for other reasons than fraud.

If the case is to turn upon the fact, whether the proceedings "de lunatico inquirendo" do or do not disclose the fact of the death of Mr. Fuller, the lunatic, before the sale of his real estate, we say those proceedings, if not expressly, at least by implication, clearly show that he was dead, not only when the sale was made, but before the petition for an order to sell. The offer was to prove that Mr. Fuller died on the 6th of April 1842. The record shows that the petition for the order to sell was presented in court, and the order made November 12th 1842. That the order was issued March 28th 1843. That the land was sold, the first time, August 12th 1843. That, November 8th 1843, that sale was set aside, and an order for resale then issued; that it was sold a second time, March 4th 1844, and that sale was confirmed May 11th 1844 — all long after his death.

The petition asking for an order to sell the real estate begins thus: "The petition of the undersigned committee of the person and estate of Timothy Fuller, late of," &c. and then closes thus: "Your petitioners, therefore, pray the court to make an order authorizing your petitioners to sell said land for the purpose of paying the debts charged against the estate of said Timothy, and they will," &c.

In the schedule attached to the petition is this "estimate of the sum that will probably be required for the payment of the debts incurred, in the support and maintenance of the said Timothy Fuller and his family."

It is almost impossible to read this petition or schedule and not see that, at its date, Timothy Fuller was dead.

James C. Marshall, for defendant.—This case presents a single point, and the law ruling the same has long since been well settled. Whether the proceedings of the Court of Common Pleas of Erie county, in No. 17 of August Term 1841, a court of record having competent jurisdiction of the subject-matter, are null and void, or can be rendered so by parol proof, or can be so decreed indirectly in this ejectment, an original action, while its adjudications and proceedings remain unreversed and in full force, is the simple question presented in this case. Can there be any doubt about it?

1. The plaintiffs have not the colour of equity; they are the heirs of Timothy Fuller, who had contracted debts for his own and his family's support; and the land now claimed by these heirs had been sold at a judicial sale to pay those debts, and the money arising from said sale honestly appropriated to the payment of the same. The defendants do not claim title under the heirs of Fuller, but their title is paramount. The descent to the plaintiffs is quo modo suspended until the debts of the ancestor are paid; that descent is interrupted by the proceedings in the Court of Common Pleas, and finally defeated by the judicial sale. There are equitable estoppels which will estop a party from using a title which in good conscience ought to enure to the use of another: McPherson v. Cunliff, 11 S. & R. 426.

2. The Court of Common Pleas being a court of general jurisdiction, its judgments and decrees are conclusive in all matters within its jurisdiction, and cannot be reversed or avoided collaterally Jackson v. Summerville, 1 Harris 369; Painter v. Henderson, 7 Barr 52; Lockhart v. John, Id. 137. This is a case where the purchaser of land under a judicial sale, with the proceedings all regular on their face, bonâ fide paid his money, took possession some eighteen years ago, and the law is well settled that a purchaser at judicial sale is not bound to look or inquire beyond the record. He has nothing to do with errors or mistakes of the court in matters of fact, and most unquestionably so when they do not appear of record: McPherson v. Cunliff, 11 S. & R. 433, 434; 2 Burr. 1009; Selin v. Snyder, 7 S. & R. 166; Commonwealth v. Greenwood Turnpike Company, 1 Con. Rep. 7.

The record of the Common Pleas, on which the defendant's title rests, is an entirety. If the plaintiffs had been permitted to prove the fact of the death of Fuller, after the finding him a lunatic, or non compos mentis, and before the sale of the real estate by the order of the Court of Common Pleas, the evidence would have availed them nothing. The whole proceedings, from the filing of the petition for a commission in the nature of a writ de lunatico inquirendo upon Timothy Fuller, until the confirmation of the sale of the land by the court, constitute but one record or proceedings — just the same as a judgment, fi. fa., levy on real estate, inquisition, condemnation, venditioni exponas, sale by the sheriff, confirmation, and deed.

The death of either of the parties after fieri facias issued, does not prevent the venditioni exponas from issuing immediately upon the return of the fi. fa. levied on land, and the same condemned: Bleecher v. Bond, 4 W. C. C. R. 6. Upon the confirmation of the finding by the commission that Timothy Fuller was non compos mentis, he was civilly dead; and could do no act to bind himself, or his estate, any more than if he had been naturally dead. The committee of a lunatic stands in the same relation to the estate of the lunatic, so far as the same is necessary to pay debts contracted both before and after lunacy found, as the executors of a decedent where by the will the executors are directed to sell certain real estate for the payment of debts. In the case of executors, it is settled that the descent is cut as to the land directed to be sold by the executor, and the heir cannot recover in ejectment. The case of a lunatic is equally strong. The estate of both passes into the custody of the law, to be administered according to law, and the law will see that it is properly administered.

If the natural death of Fuller vacated the powers of the committee, what then? The answer the plaintiffs would give, would be that letters of administration would be granted, and the administration of the estate would go into the hands of another set of trustees. What benefit would either the creditors of Fuller or his heirs derive from that change? The estate is still in the custody of the law, and one trustee can administer as well as another. The committee have commenced the administration, and the Act of Assembly makes no provision that the powers of the...