Bayne v. Garrett

17 Tex. 330
CourtTexas Supreme Court
DecidedJuly 1, 1856
StatusPublished
Cited by6 cases

This text of 17 Tex. 330 (Bayne v. Garrett) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Texas Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Bayne v. Garrett, 17 Tex. 330 (Tex. 1856).

Opinion

Lipscomb, J.

There has been a great deal more difficulty in reading this record and understanding it, than is pr esented by the law of the case. The Clerk seems to have been experimenting upon how much perpléxity he could throw into his transcript; and if so, he has certainly been eminently suceesful. Instead of the transcript presenting the different compo nent parts in their proper consecutive connection, it has the appearance of each having been written on a separate piece of paper, and then well shuffled together, after which he has transcribed from each in the order they were left by the shuffler. But, with great labor on the part of counsel, we believe that the different parts have been properly and finally joined together, in the order in which the transcript ought to have presented them.

It appears that in 1854, the plaintiff in error filed his petition in the Probate Court for San Augustine county, against the defendant in error, in which he stated that at the October Term, A. D. 1850, of the District Court for San Augustine county, one Edmund P. Gaines recovered a judgment against the defendant in error, as the administrator of Jacob Garrett, for eleven hundred dollars and costs of suit, which was ordered by the District Court to be paid out of the assets of Jacob Garrett, in due course of administration ; that the defendant in error appealed from this judgment to the Supreme Court in 1851, and the Supreme Court affirmed the judgment in all things ; that Gaines assigned the judgment to the plaintiff in error, for the benefit of the estate of David Kennedy, of which the plaintiff in error is administrator ; and that defendant in error has not paid any part of the judgment, nor made any account of his administration since the rendition of the [332]*332judgment; wherefore he prays that defendant in error be called on to account, &c.

To this petition the defendant in error pleaded that the plaintiff in error was not the administrator of the deceased David Kennedy, because that administration on said Kennedy’s estate had been opened more than twelve months previous to the institution of this suit, and there had been no continuance thereof, and that it was closed by operation of law ; also, that the defendant was not the administrator of Jacob Garrett, deceased, at the institution of this suit; but that administration had been closed in 1849 by operation of law ; also, that he is not responsible to make distribution of the proceeds in his hands, as shown by the sale of property to the full extent, because his account of final settlement of said estate shows that the estate is indebted to him six hundred and four dollars and twenty-six cents for the preservation and management of the estate, which account had been allowed him.

There was a judgment in the Probate Court, that defendant as the administrator of Jacob Garrett, pay into the Court for the use and benefit of the estate of David Kennedy, the amount of the judgment mentioned in the petition, and that execution issue to enforce the order. An appeal was taken to the District Court, where a jury was waived and the case submitted to the Court on evidence, of which the following is the substance : In 1842 an inventory of the property belonging to the estate of Jacob Garrett was returned to the Probate Court, appraised at $6117 63 ; there is no list of debts due from the estate, or any proof of such. In June, 1847, there is an application to distribute, among the heirs, such property as may be pointed out by the administrator, and in July of the same year there is a distribution of fourteen out of seventeen slaves mentioned in the inventory, and of nothing more, which partition is confirmed by the Probate Court at its July Term, 1847. There is next of record a final account of the defendant in [333]*333error, as administrator, on the 31st of January, 1848, in which he credits himself with $2525 76, and charges himself with the receipt of $3197 98, which, he says, leaves a balance due the estate of $654 26. This account was sworn to and approved. About the same time there was an order in the minutes of tlie Probate Court, discharging the defendant from further duty as administrator, leaving this balance due of $654 26, and all the property of the estate, except the part of the slaves which, had been distributed in 1847, in his hands. There was then read in evidence copies of proceedings from the District Court of San Augustine county, had subsequent to this order of discharge, showing the action of .the defendant in error in that Court, as administrator of the estate of Jacob Garrett, which copies were on file in the Probate Court, and of these were the transcript of the suit between Edmund P-„ Gaines and the defendant in error, as administrator, containing the judgment mentioned in the plaintiff’s petition in the Probate Court, which suit was admitted to have been instituted in 1850 ; also a copy of the judgment in the Supreme Court on appeal in same case, which is mentioned in plaintiff’s petition. There next appears an order of the Probate Court at its July Term, in 1851, purporting to be rendered at the suit of Robert Martin, Clerk of the District Court, against the, defendant in error, as the administrator of Jacob Garrett, which recites that there was due said Martin $73 for costs in suits in the District Court of San Augustine county against the estate of Garrett, and that the defendant in error had applied for an order of sale of property belonging to the estate of Jacob Garrett to pay said costs, and also the sum of $1150 for and on account of the debt due on the Gaines judgment, and ordering certain property to be sold and the proceeds to be applied to the payment of the claim of the said Martin, and other judgments against the estate of the said Jacob Garrett. After this there is an account rendered Dec. 31,1852, in the Probate Court, by the defendant in error, as the administrator of Jacob Garrett, in [334]*334which he charges himself with $1002, proceeds of a sale of the homestead of Jacob Garrett, and from this he subtracts, instead of adding, 8654 26, balance due the estate as by his account of 1848. There was some evidence about the partition in 1847, and the sale of land mentioned in the account of 1852, not material to be noticed. Upon these facts the District Judge rendered the following judgment: “ Being satis- “ fied that the estate of Jacob Garrett, deceased, had been “ closed and the said William Garrett discharged as adminis- “ trator before this proceeding was commenced in the Probate “ Court, it is therefore considered that the said Probate Court “ of San Augustine county had no jurisdiction of this proceed- “ ing, and therefore the said supposed judgment of the said “ Probate Court in the premises is set aside, and the said pro- “ ceedings by the said Grafton H. Bayne, administrator of D. “ Kennedy! against the said William Garrett, administrator of “ Jacob Garrett, deceased, be dismissed, and that William “ Garrett do have and recover,” &c. This judgment, dismissing the suit, is assigned by the plaintiff in error as the ground on which he asks a reversal of the judgment. The Court below based its decision evidently upon the order of the Probate Court of 31st Jan., 1848, as follows, i.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
17 Tex. 330, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/bayne-v-garrett-tex-1856.