Carroll, Hoy & Co. v. Davidson

23 La. Ann. 428

• Court: Supreme Court of Louisiana
• Decided: May 15, 1871
• Docket: No. 3141
• Status: Published

Opinions

Howell, J.

Plaintiffs sue the defendant individual^ on two notes signed by her as administratrix of the estate of N. Davidson. The defense is that the plaintiffs were the factors of her husband, Neal Davidson, before the late war; that the whole of the debt represented by said notes was in the form of an account against said Davidson for supplies, etc., furnished him during his life; that after she qualified as administratrix the amount was presented to her as a claim against the estate of the deceased, and at the request of plaintiffs she acknowledged it to be such by the notes sued on, and that she can not be made responsible for the debts of her deceased husband.

■ It is shown that Neal Davidson died in 1863; that the accounts made out in the name of the estate of Neal Davidson, and for which the notes were given, ran from August 12, 1865, to July 10, 1866, and from July 30, 1866, to July 1, 1867, and were for supplies furnished the plantation which belonged to the succession of the deceased, but cultivated under the management of the defendant, through her oldest son, of ago, there being some minor children; that on the eleventh May, 1866, the defendant applied for the appointment as administratrix, and on the same day, without any publication, the order appointing her such, and directing an inventory to be made, was granted by the clerk of the court, and on the twenty-eighth of said month she furnished a bond; that on the sixteenth of September, 1869, she fileij an account or tableau of debts, including one in her own favor of over §6000, and oue in favor of plaiutiffs of $2202, but not the two notes sued on; and that on the second of February, 1870, the whole property of the succession was sold and purchased hy her; that in the correspondence of plaintiffs they advised the defendant’s son “ to have the estate placed under administration, so that it could be legally used in raising money to carry it through the making of a crop,” and requested the notes to be signed by defendant as administratrix.

Tile question arises, do these facts show that plaintiffs gave credit to and dealt with the succession of Neal Davidson in regard to these notes, and estop them from holding the administratrix individually liable ? We think not. Plaintiffs evidently did not intend a liberality, and the fact that they thought that the administration could be legally used to raise money for making a crop, did not change the law of successions anil the powers and responsibilities of administrators. It is no longer an open question that executors or other administrators can not, in any transaction in which they pretend to act as such, create any liability on the estates represented by them. They have power to acknowledge existing debts or liabilities, but not to create them. If it should be necessary to conduct a plantation for tlie benefit of a succession during the time necessary for settling it up, special authority may be obtained from the court to do so, and thus bind the estate for current expenses. But to permit an administrator indefinitely to carry-on the planting business and annually increase the indebtedness of the estate, would give him the power to ruin the estate irretrievably.

The argument that plaintiffs gave credit to the succession, and must he held to a recourse upon the succession, is more specious than solid. This doctrine applies when the contracting parties are actually or apparently capable of contracting. But a succession can not make a contract. It must he represented, and its representative has only the powers specially conferred and those necessarily incident to the carrying out or exercise of such as are conferred. In all cases where administrators have given notes, the creditors were affected with knowledge as much as in this case, and acted voluntarily in taking the notes, and yet the successions were relieved from liability, and the administrators were held responsible, except in a few where the notes were given for debts existing at the date of opening the successions, and the notes were considered simply as acknowledgments of the debts. Such were the cases of Gillett v. Rashal, 9 R. 276, and Bank of Louisiana v. Dejean, 12 R. 16, cited by counsel for defendant. In the other four cases quoted by them, the parties relieved were agents, and acted as such to the knowledge of the creditors giving the credit.

In the case of Livingston v. Gaussen, 21 An. 286, we examined the cases in which this question was raised, and recognized the distinction between those where the debt was created by the deceased and those where it originated pending the administration. In this case the defense seems to have been prepared with reference to the doctrine announced in that, but the evidence does not sustain the defense. It (is not proven, as alleged, that the supplies were furnished in the lifetime of the husband, while it is shown that the wife is now the owner of all the property left by the husband, under a sale provoked by herself, notwithstanding the irregularity of her appointment. Our conclusion, is that this case is in the category of those where representatives of successions have been held responsible personally on notes given in their representative capacity, and it is therefore unnecessary to pass on the bills of exception taken by the plaintiffs in the court below.

It.is ordered that the judgment appealed from be reversed, and that plaintiffs recover of defendant, Martha A. Davidson, the sum of $4500, with eight per cent, interest from sixteenth December, 1866, and the further sum of $3282 91, with like interest from first January, 1868,, and costs in both courts. .