Dawes v. Boylston

9 Mass. 337
CourtMassachusetts Supreme Judicial Court
DecidedOctober 15, 1812
StatusPublished
Cited by55 cases

This text of 9 Mass. 337 (Dawes v. Boylston) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Dawes v. Boylston, 9 Mass. 337 (Mass. 1812).

Opinion

Sewall, J.

The general question to be determined upon these pleadings is, whether the judgment recovered by the defendant, as administrator of Thomas Boylston, against the executor of the last will of Moses Gill, Esq., deceased, so far as payment and satisfaction have been obtained, is to be inventoried and accounted for by the defendant, according to the condition of his bond of administration, given to the judge of probate for the county of Suffolk, when the defendant’s letters of administration were'granted. If, on this question, the decision should be against the defendant, there arises another question, of the authority of this Court in this particular case; of the * liability of the defendant, in this [308]*308jurisdiction, in an action prosecuted at the instigation of the residu ary legatees named in the last will of Thomas Boylston.

Against the accountability, which seems to result from the nominal description of the property in question, the defendant alleges a title in himself to the demands for which that judgment was recovered ; an assigment thereof for a valuable consideration paid by himself. Upon this assignment he relies, as vesting in him an exclusive right, an authority to retain to his own use, and without account, all the effects of that judgment, recovered in name only by the administrator of Thomas Boylston, deceased.

The title of the defendant, of which the burden of proof certainly rests upon him, is thus derived, according to the facts disclosed in the pleadings, and not traversed or contested, so far as they are material to the defence, or the maintenance, of this action. The immediate assignment to the defendant is by an indenture of two parts, dated the 24th of August, 1799, from George Lee and others. They acted therein, and claimed to act, as assignees, under a commission of bankruptcy, which had been issued against Thomas Boylston and Messrs. Lane f Frazier, and by virtue of a special assignment from Thomas Boylston in his lifetime. That assignment, by an indenture dated the 1st of March, 1794, was made, as it appears, for the purpose of carrying into effect certain proposals on his part, assented to by the assignees and certain creditors, under the commission of bankruptcy, parties to the instrument. By this indenture, Thomas Boylston, among other things, assigns and conveys to Lee and others all the real and personal estate which he had before placed in the hands of Moses Gill and others, by certain voluntary conveyances without consideration, and which are thereby revoked, and all other his personal estate, moneys, and securities for money, goods, and chattels, whatsoever, (with certain exceptions not important in this inquiry,) upon trusts afterwards * mentioned. The writings, by which these several assignments are understood to have been effected, are in the case by the proferí of them, and by the oyer granted in the pleadings; and the construction and effect of these instruments, so far as the defendant’s claim and title are concerned, is the important. inquiry, upon the result of which the decision in this action depends.

By the indenture, to which Thomas Boylston was a party, his separate debts, an annuity for four years, and a gratuity of 5000/. to him personally, are to be paid out of the estate and effects to be recovered from Moses Gill and others, and out of his other separate estate and effects; subject to which, the whole are made and declared to be, with the estates and effects of Lane & Frazier, a [309]*309security to all the joint creditors of Lane, Frazier, and Boylston, for a composition of fifteen shillings in the pound, of the debts proved, &c., under the commission, payable in certain instalments, which were to be completed on or before the last day of March, 1793, and to be accepted in full by the creditors of the partnership. And the assignees and creditors covenant that, when all the trusts in favor of the creditors shall be fully performed, tin y will consent to a supersedeas of the commission, and that it shall be lawful for the assignees to reconvey all the said estate and effects then in their hands, to the said Lane, Frazier, and Boylston, according to their respective rights and interests therein.

There is a reliance also for the plaintiff on the implied trust to the same purpose, which is said to be understood in every assignment under a commission of bankruptcy ; viz., that, when the effects assigned are found to exceed the amount of the debts proved under the commission, the surplus of the bankrupt’s effects are to be reconveyed to him, whether the commission is or is not superseded.

These trusts, by which a remaining interest and equity continued in Thomas Boylston, in the effects he had assigned, have rendered material the averments in the surrejoinder * for the plaintiff, and those for the defendant in his rebutter.

Of these allegations, the most important, in considering the general question of the defendant’s title, are the circumstances, which are to be taken as confessed, — that the defendant, when he contracted with the assignees of Thomas Boylston for an assignment of the demands vested in them against Moses Gill, was administrator with the will annexed of Thomas Boylston, by letters of administration obtained from the Prerogative Court of the archbishop of Canterbury, in which the same will had been proved on the 5th of April, 1799; that the defendant then had in his hands, of the effects of the testator, a large sum of money, much exceeding the sum required for the contract and purchase; that, with the sum paid by the defendant, the assignees held of the effects assigned more than sufficient to pay all the debts of Thomas Boylston, and the composition upon- the debts of Boylston, Lane, and Frazier; and that all their creditors respectively have been since fully satisfied, so far as the assignees, or the effects holden by them, were liable.

On the other hand, it must be understood and considered that this sufficiency of the estate and effects assigned was unknown, and had not been actually realized by the assignees, at the time of the assignment by them made to the defendant; and that a large sum of money was then due to the creditors of Thomas Boylston, and of Boylston, Lane, and Frazier, for which the effects in the hands of the assignees were then liable

[310]*310The circumstance, also, that the purchase was made with the defendant’s own money, and not with the money in his hands, as administrator, deserves attention; as it is averred and admitted by the pleadings that the defendant has paid 750Z. sterling for the assignment to him. But with this is to be considered the amount of the judgment recovered ; being, as averred, upwards of 100,000 dollars, or more than 22,7001 sterling.

* Some objections have been urged, in a general view of this subject, upon the ground that dioses in adion are not assignable, and that the assignees under the commission had no authority to assign or transfer these demands to the defendant.

Choses in action have been for a long time considered as assignable, as to the beneficial interest and property; and numerous decisions to that effect may be cited, in which the principle has been established and enforced, as well in courts of law as in equity.

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Bluebook (online)
9 Mass. 337, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/dawes-v-boylston-mass-1812.