Herrington v. Herrington

155 S.E. 51, 42 Ga. App. 126, 1930 Ga. App. LEXIS 258
CourtCourt of Appeals of Georgia
DecidedOctober 10, 1930
Docket20030
StatusPublished
Cited by3 cases

This text of 155 S.E. 51 (Herrington v. Herrington) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Georgia primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Herrington v. Herrington, 155 S.E. 51, 42 Ga. App. 126, 1930 Ga. App. LEXIS 258 (Ga. Ct. App. 1930).

Opinion

Stephens, J.

1. Where, after the death of an intestate, the heirs at law, who were her children, met and agreed upon a division among themselves of the real estate which had belonged to her, and where at the time no division was made of any personal property belonging to her estate, and no agreement was made respecting a division of certain personal’ property consisting of household furnishings, farming material, stock, etc., which had been located on the home place of the intestate where she and some of these heirs had lived together, and which after her death remained there in the possession of the heirs residing there, and was in their possession there with the knowledge of all the heirs when the agreement dividing the real estate was made, and where one of the heirs at law had, a number of years prior to the' death of the intestate, moved away from the home place and had lived to himself, and where other heirs remained on the home place and lived there with the intestate and themselves conducted farming operations there, [127]*127and where, after the execution of the agreement dividing the real estate, the personal property, which at the time was located on the home place, was left there in the possession of these heirs, and where the heir who had not lived upon the home place made no claim as an heir at law to any of this personalty until a period of about ten years had elapsed after the execution of the agreement dividing the real estate, the inference is authorized that he had relinquished to these heirs all his right, title, and interest in and to the personalty.

2. Where the plaintiff alleged in the petition that it was agreed between him and the defendants as heirs at law of the intestate to divide the real estate among all the heirs at law, and that the personal property of the intestate, who was the mother of the plaintiff and the defendants, should not be divided until after the death of the father of the plaintiff and the defendants, who also was living at the home place, and that after the father’s death the personalty should be divided, and where the defendants in their plea denied that the personalty had belonged to the intestate and alleged that it was the property of the defendants, and denied that any agreement to divide the personalty after the death of the father was made as alleged by the plaintiff, but did allege in their plea that the personal property was “to remain on the home place and belong to these defendants, and it was so understood at thé time of the division of said estate,” a charge by the court that it' was contended by the defendants that the heirs at law “entered into an agreement whereby certain divisions were made of the estate, and that they [the defendants] were to have the personal, property in question,” is not error prejudicial to the plaintiff as being an inaccurate statement of the defendants’ contention. Especially is this true where, immediately preceding this excerpt from the charge of the court excepted to, the court charged the jury that the defendants contended that the personal property in their possession at the time of the death of the intestate belonged to them. Nor was it error prejudicial to the plaintiff as being an inaccurate statement of the defendants’ contentions, and as being unsupported by the evidence, where the court charged that if there was a division among the parties to the case whereby “certain property and money” belonging to the intestate was to belong to the defendants, there could be no recovery for the plaintiff.

3. Although no issue was made by the pleadings or the evidence as to whether the personal property in question belonged to the father, it was nevertheless not prejudicial to the plaintiff for the court to charge that if the personal property belonged to the father, there could be no recovery for the plaintiff. The plaintiff was not asserting any title to the property as heir at law to his father.

4. Since the evidence presented an issue of fact as to whether the personal property in question had belonged to the intestate or was the property of the defendants, and also presented an issue of fact as to whether, if the property was the property of the intestate, there was an agreement between the plaintiff and the defendants, after the death of the intestate, that the property should be held intact by the defendants during the father’s lifetime, and, after the death of the father should be divided among all the heirs, a verdict in favor of the defendants necessarily [128]*128amounted to a finding that the property belonged to the defendants, either by the act of the plaintiff in relinquishing title thereto to them, or by title acquired otherwise. The verdict necessarily amounted to a finding that the defendants did not wrongfully intermeddle with and convert t.o their own use the personal property of the intestate, and therefore that the defendants were not executors de son tort. Therefore, even if the charge was erroneous in its definition as to what constitutes an executor de son tort, it was necessarily harmless to the plaintiff and could not have influenced the verdict which was found for the defendants.

5. A charge of the court, that it was agreed between the parties that if “certain property and money” belonging to the mother should belong to the defendants, there could be no recovery, is not subject to the objection that it was prejudicial to the plaintiff in that the court failed to distinguish between personal and real property. Since the pleadings and the evidence presented no issue as to whether there was any liability by the defendants predicated upon the division of the real estate, the jury necessarily must have inferred that in this part of the charge the court, in making reference to “property,” necessarily had reference to personal property. This charge was in no wise prejudicial to the plaintiff.

6. A chargfe to the jury which contains a complete and correct proposition of law applicable to the case is not error in that it fails to contain another appropriate and correct proposition of law. Peeples v. Rudulph, 153 Ga. 17 (2) (111 S. E. 548). Where the court charged the jury that, in the event of an agreement between the heirs that personal property belonging to the intestate was to remain in the hands of the father until his death, the burden rested upon the plaintiff to show that the property was in existence at the time of the death of the father, and that if, by the agreement between the heirs, the property belonged to the father during his lifetime, and if he consumed any of it or disposed of it, the defendants would not be liable to account therefor, this charge, where not excepted to as being an incomplete and incorrect proposition of law applicable to the case, was not error in that it failed to contain an instruction to the jury that if the property of the intestate had been converted into other property by the father and this property was left by him at the time of his death, the plaintiff might recover.

7. The plaintiff can not complain of a charge to the effect that if the jury believed that the agreement as contended for by the plaintiff was entered into by the parties, the action was not barred by the statute of limitations. -The charge being favorable to the plaintiff, it certainly was not error prejudicial to him.

8. The provisions of section 4627 of the Civil Code of 1910 weré not applicable to any of the issues presented, and the court did not err in refusing a request to give in charge the provisions of this code section.

9.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
155 S.E. 51, 42 Ga. App. 126, 1930 Ga. App. LEXIS 258, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/herrington-v-herrington-gactapp-1930.