Guardianship of Snyder v. Snyder

272 N.W. 1, 224 Wis. 200, 111 A.L.R. 261, 1937 Wisc. LEXIS 92
CourtWisconsin Supreme Court
DecidedMarch 9, 1937
StatusPublished
Cited by3 cases

This text of 272 N.W. 1 (Guardianship of Snyder v. Snyder) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Wisconsin Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Guardianship of Snyder v. Snyder, 272 N.W. 1, 224 Wis. 200, 111 A.L.R. 261, 1937 Wisc. LEXIS 92 (Wis. 1937).

Opinion

Fowler, J.

The contentions of the appellant ward are: (1) That the court should have allowed interest on the ward’s $1,500 from the time the mother misapplied the fund instead of from the time the ward became twenty-three years of age; and (2) that this interest should be compounded. The bondsman of the guardians claims, (3) that neither the mother as guardian nor the successor guardian is under obligation to pay the ward any part whatever of his $1,500 legacy because the mother had converted the $3,000' legacies to her own use before she was appointed guardian; (4) that the mother as guardian should be credited with the value of the care and keep of Donald during his minority; and (5) that the guardians should be credited with the amounts of the annual premiums chargeable by the surety as consideration for signing the bonds.

(1) The trial judge considered that the mother as guardian held the $1,500 for Donald, and that it was held subject to the terms of the will as to the time of payment. To settle the guardian’s account properly when the ward became twenty-one a trustee should then have been appointed to hold the $1,500 until the ward became twenty-three. This trustee would have been required to pay only the $1,500. Such interest as he collected'on the fund would not have belonged to the ward but to the estate of the father. As the mother as guardian did not settle with the ward when such settlement, should have been made, she and her bondsman should be held responsible to Donald for what a trustee would have been liable for but for no greater sum. The mother as guardian is impressed with full responsibility of a trustee had one been appointed, but any accrual of the fund that would have resulted from proper investment would not belong to the ward, but to the decedent’s estate. The rights of the ward and his mother as guardian should be adjudged on the same basis as they would have been had the mother continued to act as [205]*205guardian and settled her guardian’s account when the ward became twenty-three and became entitled to the $1,500 under the terms of the will. She is therefore chargeable as guardian with interest from that time.

(2) The claim for compound interest falls with the claim for interest. If technically there was a conversion of .the $3,000 by the mother by using funds of the estate to purchase the farm, or by taking the purchase-money note and mortgage in her own name when she sold the farm, such conversion occurred before she became guardian and is beside the case. Whether buying the residence and the bakery business and taking title in her own name be considered as a conversion or an improper investment is immaterial. In either case the ward was only entitled to be paid $1,500 when he became twenty-three years of age. He is entitled to be indemnified for the loss he sustained through the mother’s misconduct, but nothing more. This indemnity the judgment awards him. The only fund we are concerned with is the ,$1,500, for the ward settled with the successor guardian for the amount due him for his grandfather’s bequest. It was stipulated at the last hearing that if $1,500 was the principal sum payable to the ward $1,430 of it was payable by the mother as guardian and $70 of it by the successor guardian. The court’s judgment is based upon the stipulation. The bondsman cannot object to the amounts adjudged, if either, or both, of the guardians are liable for the principal sum.

(3) We cannot agree with respondents’ contention that the mother is not accountable as guardian. In her petition for appointment as guardian she recited that the “personal, estate of the said minors is of the probable value of $3,000.” She was required to give a bond of $4,000 to secure the safekeeping of this sum. Her. bondsman for a premium paid signed her bond as such security. She gave a receipt to herself as executrix, signed by herself as guardian, for $3,000 [206]*206designated in the receipt as the distributive share of Emmett and Donald under the will. This receipt was given after she was appointed guardian. At the time the receipt was given and the bond was executed, the mother had a mortgage taken in her own name securing a note for $10,000 which covered the $10,000 bequeathed by the will to her and the two boys, $7,000 to her and $3,000 to the boys. This note and mortgage represented the $10,000 for which she so receipted. The boys were the equitable owners of a $3,000 interest in that note and mortgage. The mother acknowledged their such interest in the inventory of the ward’s estate filed upon her appointment as guardian. That mortgage was presumably worth its face. It does not appear that it was not. At any rate it was worth $3,000, and as the mother took the title in her own name she thereby became bound as trustee to devote so much of the avails of the mortgage as was necessary to make good the interest of those for whom she held it in trust. The mother therefore in fact had in her possession at the time she became guardian $3,000 belonging to her wards invested in a note secured by a real-estate mortgage, and must be held to account for the amount so invested.

The case of Holden v. Curry, 85 Wis. 504, 55 N. W. 965, is relied on as supporting the respondents’ claim that the bondsman of the mother as guardian is not liable. It is there stated that a guardian’s bond is “no protection or security to the ward for any interference or intermeddling with his property by his guardian before he was appointed such.” In that case Parmley was administrator de bonis non of the estate of Martin Phelan. In this estate $300 was assigned to a minor. Richard, a brother of decedent, gave to Parmley a receipt stating he had received from Parmley as administrator de bonis non, $300 “the full share of said estate” of the minor, signing the receipt as guardian of the minor. He was not the minor’s guardian when he signed the receipt. Some time [207]*207later Richard was appointed the minor’s guardian. The $300 receipted for was not in fact paid by the administrator de bonis non to Richard, but he accepted in lieu of cash, an order of the administrator de bonis non upon Joseph, another brother of decedent, who had been overpaid by the original administrator of the Martin Phelan’s estate. Joseph refused to accept this order, and it was never paid. The suit was on the bond of the administrator de bonis non, not on the bond of Richard as guardian. It is said in the opinion that a guardian’s bond is no protection against acts of the person appointed guardian done before he was appointed. If this be granted, the receipt here given was given after the appointment as guardian, while the other was given before; and the receipt here given was for money’s worth, while the other was for a worthless order. These two factual differences sufficiently distinguish the case from the instant one. And if Joseph had paid Richard the $300 on the order, we surmise that in a suit on Richard’s bond as guardian the court would have held him and his bondsman liable for that sum.

The claim of the respondents here is that the mother should be held to account as executrix and not as guardian. As to liability as guardian under such circumstances, it is stated in Woerner, Guardianship, page 344, that if one is both executor and guardian, and as executor transfers to himself and charges himself as guardian, and actually has funds at the time he so charges himself, he must account as guardian. If in such circumstances by some unequivocal act he charges himself as guardian, he is accountable as guardian. The transfer in such case must be of substantial assets.

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Bluebook (online)
272 N.W. 1, 224 Wis. 200, 111 A.L.R. 261, 1937 Wisc. LEXIS 92, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/guardianship-of-snyder-v-snyder-wis-1937.