Bolz Cooperage Corp. v. Beardslee

245 S.W. 611, 211 Mo. App. 109, 1922 Mo. App. LEXIS 18
Missouri Court of Appeals·Decided December 5, 1922·Published·Cited by 3 cases

Opinion

DAUES, J.

This appeal is from an order and judgment of the Cape Girardeau Court of Common Pleas, rendered on the prohate side of the court’s jurisdiction.

There are no controverted facts, and the record is short and simple. On August 12, 1919, the appellant, a corporation, filed a demand in said court against the estate of T. J. Beardslee, deceased. The amount of the claim is twenty two hundred dollars. After setting forth a detailed statement of the account, the demand recites that the letters of administration upon said estate were granted by the said Common Pleas Court to respondent Annie G. Beardslee, on the 8th day of June, 1918; that on July 25, 1918, respondent, as said administratrix, filed with the clerk of said court the publisher’s affidavit showing publication in due and regular form- of the notice of the granting of said letters, showing that such publications were made on June 14, 1918, and once each week thereafter for three consecutive weeks. The demand then sets forth the affidavit of the publisher, with jurat to the effect that the affidavit was made on the 5th day of June, 1918, being a date prior to the issuance of the letters testamentary. It is then set forth in the demand as amended that on May 24, 1921, the administratrix filed a supplemental affidavit of the publisher showing the publications to have been made on June 14th, 21st and 28th, and July 5, 1918, the jurat showing the affidavit as made on May 23, 1923. Claimant ’s demand, or petition, then sets out the two notices, same being alike except as to the date in the jurat. The demand recites that the said notice was in fact published in a newspaper published in Cape Girardeau County on June 14th, 21st and 28th, and July 5, 1918, but that the first affidavit because of the erroneous date in the jurat was “false, farcical and invalid on its face.” It further alleges that George *112 Bolz, as officer and local manager of demandant corporation, conducted the negotiations with Beardslee out of which the claim grows; that said Bolz entered the military service of the United States on October 15,1918, and was absent from Cape Girardeau County and in such service until January, 1919, and that the original claim was exhibited to administratrix on August 13, 1919, and was filed in said Court of Common Pleas on the day prior thereto. The petition then concludes as follows:

Claimant pleads and claims the exemption granted under the Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Civil Relief Act, passed by the Congress of the United States, being the Act of March 18, 1918, Chapter 20, Section 604, 40th Statute at Large of United States, and particularly Sections 10313, 10314, 1Ó315, 10318, 10322 and 10347 as found in Barnes Federal Code 1919, and states that under and by reason of the provisions of said Act of Congress and of the facts herein set out in this petition and demand, it is entitled to recover from the said estate of Thomas J. Beardslee, deceased, the sum of $2,203,70, for which sum, together with its costs herein, it prays judgment.”

Respondent thereupon pleaded the statute of non-claim, and also what in • effect was a general demurrer, that is, that the demand or petition of claimant does not constitute a valid claim against said estate.

The court sustained the defendant’s plea and entered judgment accordingly, from which judgment Bolz Cooperage Corporation has appealed.

Counsel for appellant contend that the learned trial court, then exercising probate jurisdiction, erred in disposing of the demand or claim on respondent’s demur-* rer, it being necessary, it is said, for the court to pass on the merits of the claim.

It is true, that court on its probate side is bound by the rules laid down for the conduct of probate courts, and it is likewise accepted that under our statute, claims against estates shall be summarily heard and allowed without form of pleading. Tet here the claimant filed *113 with and presented for the consideration of the court a demand drawn and treated by it as a petition, setting out with precision and particularity that letters of administration had been properly issued upon said estate June 8, 1918; that notice had been duly published by administratrix in a county newspaper for four consecutive weeks, beginning June 14, 1918; averred that the demand had been presented to the court , on August 12, 1919, and duly exhibited to the administratrix August 13, 1919, thereupon the demand or petition anticipating the defense of the statute of non-claim, to avoid the bar of such statute, pleaded the imperfections of the publisher’s notice, and that the corporation was relieved from the bar of said statute by virtue of the Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Civil Eelief Act of March 18, 1918.

Both the claimant and the respondent submitted the matter on such pleadings. We think under such circumstances the lower court cannot now be convicted of error for disposing of the questions thus raised and presented.

It is next insisted that because of the error in the date of the jurat affixed to the printer’s first affidavit, obviously a clerical mistake, the Statute of Limitations did not begin to run from the publishing of such notice. We rule otherwise. It appears that there was in fact a proper publication of the notice of letters of administration at the time stated. The affidavit was subsequently corrected. Indeed, it is the law that the statutory mode of proof of notices in administration does not exclude other competent evidence of the fact of such publication. [State ex rel. McGeever v. Shires, 39 Mo. App. 560; Dingle v. Pollock, 49 Mo. App. 479.]

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Bolz Cooperage Corp. v. Beardslee, 245 S.W. 611, 211 Mo. App. 109, 1922 Mo. App. LEXIS 18 (Mo. Ct. App. 1922).

245 S.W. 611 (Bolz Cooperage Corp. v. Beardslee) — published by Counsel Stack Legal Research, free access to 12M+ legal documents.

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