Estate of Jones v. Culley

134 So. 2d 723, 242 Miss. 822, 1961 Miss. LEXIS 598
CourtMississippi Supreme Court
DecidedNovember 13, 1961
DocketNo. 41988
StatusPublished
Cited by6 cases

This text of 134 So. 2d 723 (Estate of Jones v. Culley) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Mississippi Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Estate of Jones v. Culley, 134 So. 2d 723, 242 Miss. 822, 1961 Miss. LEXIS 598 (Mich. 1961).

Opinion

McGehee, C. J.

The appellant George Jones, a non compos mentis, suing by his guardian Henry Towns, and Mary Jones Coleman, a non compos mentis and sister of the said George Jones, by her guardian Sandy R. King, were on the 28th day of September 1959 engaged in litigation with the appellees Lewis L. Culley and others in an attack on the validity of a sale by deed of 26.3 acres of land situated in the First Judicial District of Hinds County, Mississippi, on the ground that the wards were mentally incompetent to execute a valid conveyance and that the land was sold for an inadequate consideration.

On the 28th day of September 1959, in cause No. 56,-174, the said wards, acting by and through their attorneys of record, filed in the Chancery Court of the First Judicial District of Hinds County, Mississippi, the following motion:

‘ ‘ Come complainants in the above styled and numbered cause by and through their attorneys of record and move that the above styled and numbered cause be dismissed with prejudice and at the cost of defendants as an amicable settlement has been reached.”

On that same day Chancellor S. V. Robertson, Jr., entered a decree dismissing said litigation and reciting in his decree the following: “With prejudice and at the cost of defendants as an amicable adjustment has been arrived at between the parties, and it appearing to the court, and the court having found that it has jurisdiction of the parties and subject matter involved, and all parties are now before the court and the above styled [826]*826and numbered cause should he dismissed with prejudice and at the cost of the defendants.”

Thereafter on the 8th day of November 1960, Chancellor W. T. Horton entered a decree in the instant suit, Estate of George Jones, N.C.M., by William Higgs, Guardian, v. Lewis L. Culley, et al, No. 58,318 in the Chancery Court of the First Judicial District of Hinds County, Mississippi, reciting the names of the parties defendant to the suit and reciting further: “In the above styled and numbered cause in open court and with attorneys for complainant and defendants being present, and an oral argument and documentary evidence being presented, it appears to the court and the court finds that: ‘The plea in bar should be sustained and the bill of complaint dismissed at cost of complainant’.”

Section 422, Code of 1942, provides, among other things, that: “Guardians may be empowered by the court, or chancellor in vacation, to sell or compromise claims due their wards, on the same proceedings and under the same circumstances prescribed in reference to the sale or compromise by an executor or administrator of claims belonging to the estate of a deceased person. * * - ■

Likewise Section 607, Code of 1942, provides, among other things, that: ‘ ‘ The court, or chancellor in vacation, on petition for that purpose, may authorize the executor or administrator to sell or compromise any claim be longing to- the estate which cannot be readily collected; * *

The appellant invokes as a direct authority in the instant case what was said by the court in the case" of Union Chevrolet Co. v. Arrington, et al, 162 Miss. 816, 138 So. 593. But we think that the factual situation involved in the case of Chevrolet Co. v. Arrington, supra, is materially different from the facts in the instant case. For instance, that case involved the settlement of a claim for personal injuries to and the death of Will [827]*827Arrington, the husband of Frances Arrington, who sued in her own behalf and as next friend of her seven minor children. Will Arrington was killed in a collision when a truck operated by an employee of the appellant Union Chevrolet Company collided on a public highway with another truck on which Will Arrington was riding. The court in its opinion said: “As shown by the undisputed proof the collision was the result of the negligence of the appellant’s said employee.” (Emphasis supplied). The Court further said that: “The testimony discloses that the petition for the settlement was presented to the chancellor by one of the attorneys for the appellant, and that the only witness produced, or who was then made available to the chancellor, was the driver of appellant’s said truck, this driver being the person who was at fault in causing the injury and death. There is nothing in the present record which shows what statement the said witness made to the chancellor. The decree of the chancellor recites however that the chancellor having heard the evidence finds ‘that the outcome of the cause of action against the said Union Chevrolet Company by the said wards herein named is doubtful’.” The decree of the Chancellor there under review was void on its face, ■ since the claim could not have been a doubtful one if the proof was undisputed that the collision was the result of the negligence of the Union Chevrolet Company’s employee.

The suit in Chevrolet Co. v. Arrington, supra, was brought befóte Chancellor A. B. Amis to set aside a decree rendered by the former Chancellor G. C. Tann in October of 1929. In the suit to set aside the said decree it was alleged in the petition before Chancellor Amis “That at the time the petition for the settlement of the claims of the minors was presented to the Chancellor (Tann), the latter by reason of an illness was not then capable of intelligent action upon said petition and that the rights of said minors were not protected [828]*828in the alleged hearing of said petition, and in fact the said proceeding was a fraud upon said minors.” No fraud is alleged in the instant case.

We do not have a similar factual situation in the case at bar. Here the appellees alleged that they paid a very substantial consideration for the property in question, which the record does not show to have been inadequate on the day of the purchase, May 27, 1955, and the litigation against the appellees was dismissed upon motion of the attorneys of record of the guardians of the said two wards on September 28, 1959, which action of Chancellor S. V. Robertson was reaffirmed on November 8, 1960, by Chancellor W. T. Horton when he sustained the plea in bar to the present suit, No. 58,318, in the Chancery Court of the First Judicial District of Hinds County, Mississippi.

Section 159, Article 6, of the Mississippi State Constitution, provides, among other things, that: “The chancery court shall have full jurisdiction in the following matters and cases, viz.; (a) All matters in equity; * * * (e) Cases of idiocy, lunacy, and persons of unsound mind; * *

In the case of In Re Heard’s Guardianship, 174 Miss. 37, 163 So. 685, it is said: “The chancery court, in exercising its jurisdiction over guardianships and minors and their business, has general and constitutional jurisdiction, and all facts necessary to sustain jurisdiction or decrees of the chancery court are presumed to exist unless the contrary appears in the record. * *

“It will also be presumed that the court made inquiry and ascertained the facts necessary to sustain its action.” See also Newsom, et al v. Federal Land Bank of New Orleans, 184 Miss. 318, 185 So. 595.

The deed of May 27, 1955, in favor of Lewis L. Culley was signed by George Jones and Mary Jones Coleman in their own names and right, and not by a guardian. It is alleged in the answer of the defendant Culley in [829]*829the instant case that they were not adjudicated to he non compos mentis until 1959.

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Bluebook (online)
134 So. 2d 723, 242 Miss. 822, 1961 Miss. LEXIS 598, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/estate-of-jones-v-culley-miss-1961.