Crawford v. Shover

29 Va. 69
CourtSupreme Court of Virginia
DecidedSeptember 15, 1877
StatusPublished

This text of 29 Va. 69 (Crawford v. Shover) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Virginia primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Crawford v. Shover, 29 Va. 69 (Va. 1877).

Opinion

Moncure. P.

The court is of opinion that the appellant, John H. Crawford, as guardian of the appellee, George T. Shover, committed a breach of trust, by receiving of the appellee, William Crawford, executor of George W. Crawford, deceased, on the 25th .day of June 1863, four thousand five hundred dollars in Confederate States treasury notes in payment and discharge of so much of the legacy of eight thousand dollars, bequeathed by the will of the said testator to his adopted son, the said George T. Shover.

The said legacy, to the extent of the amount thus paid, was, at the time of such payment, perfectly secure; and it would have so remained until actual payment in good 'money, but for the payment in Confederate money as aforesaid. The estate of the said testator had been ascertained, by judicial inquiry, to be ample for the payment of at least that porticm of the said legacy which was thus paid in Confederate money. The said estate being insufficient to pay the legacies in full, the amount thereof entitled to payment was respectively scaled according to the value of the estate which was applicable to such payment. The executor, therefore, whose pecuniary ability [365]*365has not been questioned in the case, and the securities in his official bond, were liable for the payment of the amount ascertained to be due to the legatee Shover as aforesaid. And there was, if possible, a still firmer and more permanent, or at least a great additional security of the said amount, arising from the fact that the estate of the testator consisted almost exclusively of a debt of upwards of seven thousand dollars, balance *still remaining due of the purchase money of a very valuable tract of land in the county of Augusta, which had been sold by the testator after making his will and shortly before his death, on which land there had been regained, and there still existed, a vendor’s lien for the payment of the purchase money, which rendered such payment, in good money, perfectly secure. Of all these facts the appellant, the guardian of the legatee (Shover, was fully informed and cognizant.

Under these circumstances it was a palpable breach of trust in the said guardian to receive payment of the said sum of $4,SCO in Confederate money on account of said legacy as aforesaid. Such money was, at the time of such payment, very heavily depreciated; that is, depreciated to the extent. in comparison with gold, of eight dollars in Confederate money to one dollar in gold. So that the scaled value of the $4,500, received by the guardian as aforesaid in Confederate money at its nominal amount, was but $562.50 in gold!

Certainly nothing short of the most overruling necessity could have warranted the guardian in making so great a sacrifice as is thus apparent. And certainly no such necessity existed in this case.

Ii is not sufficient to say that many, and, indeed, most of the southern people had strong faith in the ultimate triumph of the Confederate cause, and in the ultimate payment of the Confederate debt; that while Confederate money was never made a legal tender, yet it was receivable in payment of taxes, and its currency was encouraged as much as possible by legislation, and it was considered by many, and perhaps most of the southern people as their patriotic duty, in the management of their own individual transactions, to accredit Confederate money as much as possible, and to receive it without question in payment of debts.

*But what a man. sui juris, may dp in the management of his own individual affairs, and what he may do as guardian of an infant in the management of the affairs of his ward, are two very different things. He may be as partriotic as he pleases in giving away his own, and it will be often meritorious for him to do so. But he cannot be patriotic at the expense of his ward, and cannot give away his ward’s estate or any part of it.

There was certainly no necessity for making such a sacrifice as appears to have been made in this case. The guardian had received of the executor on account of the legacy to his ward, one thousand dollars in good money, or its equivalent, and received it about the time of the commencement of the war. This sum, judiciously applied, would, it seems, have been amply sufficient for the support of the ward during the war. And if more had been required, no doubt it would have been small in amount, and could have been obtained of the executor in further part of the said legacy. It appears that the ward was very inexpensive, and his wants very small. In fact neither the executor nor the guardian expressed, or seem to have felt, any desire to receive Confederate money at par for good money, and each refused at first to do so in regard to the debt due to Moorman to the testator’s estate. They both knew that debt to be perfectly secured, in any event of the war; while they knew that Confederate money and Confederate bonds would only be good in the event of the success of the Confederate cause, if even then; and it is not strange, therefore, that their first impulse was, notwithstanding their hope and belief in regard to the result of the war then flagrant, and to the ultimate payment of Confederate notes and bonds, not to embark the ward’s estate in the, venture of the revolutionary struggle which was then in progress. And it was not until they were informed and advised, as they *seem to have been, that the transaction could be legalized by an investment in Confederate bonds, made by the guardian under the sanction of a judge of a circuit court in vacation, under an act passed March 5, 1863, entitled “an act authorizing fiduciaries to invest funds in their hands in certain cases and for other purposes,” (Acts of Assembly 1862 and 1863, p. 81, eh. 46,) that they consented to the payment of Confederate money in discharge of the legacy due to the ward.

Certainly that act was not designed to authorize, and did not authorize a fiduciary to receive payment of a well-secured good money debt in Confederate money at par when greatly depreciated in value, unless there was some overruling necessity for such a sacrifice, nor a judge to sanction such a proceeding by ordering such Confederate money to be invested as mentioned in the act. On the contrary, its only purpose, as expressly declared in the act, was to make it lawful for a fiduciary having in his hands money received in the due exercise of his trust, which, from any cause whatever, he was unable to pay over to the parties entitled thereto, to apply by motion or petition, to any judge of a circuit court in vacation for leave to invest. &c., in interest bearing bonds or certificates of the Confederate States, &c. That act was certainly not designed to create the very necessity for which it was intended to provide; that is, to authorize the receipt of depreciated Confederate money in payment of a good money debt in order that such Confederate money might be invested in a Confederate bond; but only to authorize such an investment of Confederate money which might be already in the hands of a fiduciary, having been received by him in the due exercise of his [366]*366trust, and he being unable from any cause to pay it over to the parties entitled thereto.

^Therefore the order obtained from Judge Thompson in this case affords no sanction to the act of'the guardian in receiving the Confederate money and making the investment thereof as was done in this case. The judge had no jurisdiction to make such an order, and would certainly not have made it if the facts of the case had been set out in the petition, or otherwise made known to him. This is a very clear proposition according to several decisions heretofore made by this court.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
29 Va. 69, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/crawford-v-shover-va-1877.