Chanowsky v. Friedman

205 S.W.2d 641, 1947 Tex. App. LEXIS 1212
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedOctober 17, 1947
DocketNo. 14858
StatusPublished
Cited by4 cases

This text of 205 S.W.2d 641 (Chanowsky v. Friedman) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Texas primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Chanowsky v. Friedman, 205 S.W.2d 641, 1947 Tex. App. LEXIS 1212 (Tex. Ct. App. 1947).

Opinion

McDonald, Chief Justice.

Mrs. Minnie Friedman, the appellee here, brought this suit against Adolph Chanow-sky as Independent Executor of the Estate of Mary Chanowsky, deceased, and against Jake Chanowsky. Jake Chanowsky and Mary Chanowsky were husband and wife for many years prior to Mrs. Chanowsky’s death, which occurred in February of 1945. Adolph Chanowsky is their son. In her petition Mrs. Friedman alleges: She recovered a judgment for $4,302.52 against Jake Chanowsky on March 30, 1936, and the judgment, though unpaid, has been kept alive by issuance of execution. Mary Cha-nowsky died on February 13, 1945, leaving a will which was duly probated in Tarrant County. Adolph Chanowsky qualified as-independent executor, and is now acting as such. Among the assets of the Estate of Mary Chanowsky are many items of the community estate of Jake and Mary Cha-nowsky, the total value of which is at least $35,000. After all debts, expenses of last illness and burial, expenses of administration, and all inheritance and estate taxes are equitably allocated and paid, the residue of community property will be sufficient to pay plaintiff’s entire debt The judgment is a valid and just obligation of the community estate of Jake and Mary Chanowsky and should be paid out of the community property formerly belonging to them. The prayer of the petition is that the amount of the judgment, plus court costs and accumulated interest, together with any interest that may hereafter accrue, “be established as a debt against the community property of the defendant Jake Chanowsky and Mary Chanowsky, deceased; that the defendant Adolph Chanowsky as independent executor be compelled to pay said sum now due upon said judgment in Cause No. 9443-A, out of the assets of the Estate of Mary Chanowsky; that the plaintiff have such other and further relief to which she may show herself justly entitled both at law and'in equity.”

Judgment was rendered in favor of plaintiff on an instructed verdict. The judgment finds the 1936 judgment against Jake Cha-nowsky to be a valid debt and charge against the community property of Jake and Mary Chanowsky; it decrees that the [643]*643amount of it, plus interest and costs, be recovered by plaintiff from Adolph Chanow-sky as Independent Executor of the Estate of Mary Chanowsky; it orders Adolph Chanowsky, as Independent Executor, to pay all' of the said judgment, interest and costs, to plaintiff, and orders that plaintiff have her execution. Costs are adjudged against Adolph Chanowsky as Independent Executor. Jake Chanowsky did not except nor give notice of appeal. Adolph'Chanow-sky, as Independent Executor, has appealed.

Appellant suggests that the judgment was not a final one, in that it did not dispose of the suit alleged against Jake Chanowsky, he asserts that the court committed reversible error in overruling his motion for continuance, and he contends that the form of the instructed verdict was insufficient to support the judgment rendered by the trial court. We have carefully considered these contentions, and overrule them. Discussion of them is not necessary in view of the disposition we make of the appeal.

The principal question on the merits of the case is whether or not the evidence is sufficient to establish any liability on the part of Adolph Chanowsky, as Independent Executor of the Estate of Mary Chanow-sky, for the community debt represented by the judgment taken against Jake Chanow-sky prior to Mary Chanowsky’s death.

Plaintiff’s theory is that the prior judgment was a charge against the entire community estate, that Adolph came into possession of enough of the community property to pay the debt, that the evidence does not show any other debts or charges against the community estate, and that, therefore, the trial court was correct in ordering Adolph, as Executor, to pay the prior judgment. This logically brings us to a consideration of the evidence.

Formal proof was made of the judgment taken against Jake Chanowsky in 1936, of the necessary steps taken to keep it alive, and of its non-payment. Formal proof was made of Mrs. Chanowsky’s will, its probate, and the appointment and qualification of Adolph as Independent Executor. There was introduced in evidence the inventory and appraisement of Mrs. Chanowsky’s estate, filed by Adolph as Executor in the county court on May 16, 1946, and signed and sworn to by Adolph in customary form. The inventory lists a large amount of property as constituting the estate of Mary Cha-nowsky, and also lists, as community property, a $10,000, Series G. United States Government bond, described as being of the value of $9,470. Jake Chanowsky did not 'testify. Adolph was called to the witness stand by the plaintiff. He was asked only if he were the son of Jake and Mary Cha-nowsky, if his father and mother were married a long time before the judgment was rendered in 1936, if they were married up to the time of her death, and if she died on or about February 13, 1945, to all of which he replied in the affirmative. When plaintiff rested her case, the defendant Adolph Chanowsky also rested, without offering any evidence. Jake Chanowsky, although he had been cited and had filed an answer in the case, did not personally appear at the trial.

“Nothing is clearer in our law, at declared both by statute and by repeated 'decisions of this court, than that the community property of the husband and wife is subject to the payment of the debts contracted by either of them during the marriage, except when otherwise specially provided, such exception having no application to the facts of this case; and that the heirs of the wife, on her death, are entitled, not to one-half of the community property as it may then exist, but to one-half of what may remain, after the discharge of the debts to which such property is liable. Articles 4627, 3592, R.S. [Vernon’s Ann. Civ.St. arts. 4620, 3661] ; Jones v. Jones, 15 Tex. [143], 147; Carter v. Conner, 60 Tex. [52], 60.

“It is equally clear that the husband is not only ordinarily entitled to the exclusive management and disposition of the property of the community estate during the marriage, but that such right or power of management and disposition, for the purpose of discharging the ordinary debts of the community estate, continues and is likewise exclusive, after the death of the wife; it having been determined that this right or power of the surviving husband overrides that of the administrator of the [644]*644estate of the wife. Primm v. Barton, 18 Tex. [206], 227; Good v. Coombs, 28 Tex. [34], 50; Moody, Administrator, v. Smoot, 78 Tex. [119], 123, 14 S.W. 285; Levy v. Moody, [Tex.Civ.App.], 87 S.W. [205], 208.” Stone v. Jackson, 109 Tex. 385, 210 S.W. 953, 954.

Plaintiff cites Lovejoy v. Cockrell, Tex.Com.App., 63 S.W.2d 1009, which discusses the rights of the executor or administrator where the husband dies first, and plaintiff suggests that the same rules apply where the wife dies first. But the distinction between the two kinds of cases and the differences in the rules applicable, are clearly set out in such cases' as Moody v. Smoot, 78 Tex. 119, 123, 14 S.W. 285, 286, and the distinction is also noticed in the excerpts above quoted from the opinion in Stone v. Jackson. In Moody v. Smoot it is said:

“The community debts are his debts, but are not ordinarily the debts of the wife, except in the sense that the community property is burdened with the liability for their payment.

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Bluebook (online)
205 S.W.2d 641, 1947 Tex. App. LEXIS 1212, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/chanowsky-v-friedman-texapp-1947.