Hinchman, Admr. v. Fry

147 N.E. 724, 89 Ind. App. 79, 1925 Ind. App. LEXIS 216
CourtIndiana Court of Appeals
DecidedApril 28, 1925
DocketNo. 11,982.
StatusPublished
Cited by3 cases

This text of 147 N.E. 724 (Hinchman, Admr. v. Fry) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Indiana Court of Appeals primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Hinchman, Admr. v. Fry, 147 N.E. 724, 89 Ind. App. 79, 1925 Ind. App. LEXIS 216 (Ind. Ct. App. 1925).

Opinion

McMahan, J.

Appellee filed a claim against her father’s estate for $500 which was received by the decedent as a trustee for appellee. A trial by jury resulted in a verdict and allowance for appellee.

Appellant contends the evidence is not sufficient to sustain the verdict and that the court erred in giving and refusing to give certain instructions.

John Gifford, grandfather of appellee, died testate in 1871. He bequeathed $1,000 to appellant’s decedent, Sanford Hinchman, in trust for appellee and a sister. This legacy was paid to the decedent February 28,1872. Appellee was born in July, 1868, and lived with her father until she became grown. She worked at the millinery trade for a period of about three years before she married, which was in February, 1892. Her mother died many years ago, the date of which is not disclosed, although the inference is that she died prior to 1870. Sanford Hinchman married a second time, in 1870, and died in 1922. About six years before his death, he sold his farm for $19,200 and gave each of his six children by the second marriage $3,000. There is no evidence to show .what he did with the $500 which he held in trust for appellee. No guardian was ever appointed for appellee, and no court ever assumed jurisdiction of the trust fund.

There is evidence that in the spring of 1892 the decedent gave appellee the sum of $500, at which time appellee gave her father a receipt for $500. There is also evidence that in 1906 appellee asked her father for the money that was due her from her grandfather, and that *81 her father at that time said he did not have it, but that he would settle it sometime. There is also evidence that in 1912 appellee asked her father for the money; that he said he did not have it then, but was worth it and would see that appellee got it; that appellee asked him to give her a note for it, and that he said his word was good and she would get the money.

Appellee contends that her father was liable to account to her for interest on the money at the rate of six percent per annum from the time he received it. The court instructed the jury in accordance with this contention. This was error. The burden of proving liability for interest on trust funds is upon him who alleges the right. In re People’s Trust Co. (1915), 169 App. Div. 699, 155 N. Y. 639. There is nothing in the will of John Gifford indicating that it was the intention of the testator that appellee’s father should, invest the money which was given him as trustee for appellee. In so far as that instrument is concerned, he was not required to do anything more than hold the money as trustee, and pay it to appellee at the proper time. He was not accountable to her for any interest on the funds, and, unless he converted it to his own use, loaned it out at interest or otherwise invested it, his estate should not be chargeable with interest. If he deposited it in a bank, loaned it or otherwise invested it, he would be chargeable with the interest or income received by him. If he deposited it in a bank in his own name, commingling it with his own funds, and used it as his own, in a suit for an accounting, he would have been liable to respond to appellee for interest at the legal rate during the time he so used it. But there is no allegation in appellee’s claim as filed, nor is there any evidence, that the decedent converted the money to his own use, or that it was loaned or deposited in a bank so as to earn *82 interest, unless the evidence that appellee in recent years asked her father for the money and his statements to her be considered as evidence of a conversion. In the absence of some proof on this subject, the decedent was not liable for interest. For a discussion of the liability of a trustee for interest in trust funds, see St. Paul Trust Co. v. Strong (1901), 85 Minn. 1, 88 N. W. 256; White v. Sherman (1897), 168 Ill. 589, 48 N. E. 128, 61 Am. St. 132; In re Gehring’s Estate (1923), 179 Wis. 589, 192 N. W. 26; Clarke v. Gilmore (1914), 163 App. Div. 845, 147 N. Y. Supp. 129; Society v. Pelham (1879), 58 N. H. 566; Knowlton v. Bradley (1845), 17 N. H. 458, 43 Am. Dec. 609; Coffin v. Bramlitt (1868), 42 Miss. 194, 208, 97 Am. Dec. 449; Wagner v. Coen (1895), 41 W. Va. 351, 23 S. E. 735; Davis v. Swedish-Am. Nat. Bank (1899), 78 Minn. 408, 80 N. W. 953, 81 N. W. 210, 79 Am. St. 400.

Appellee, in support of her contention that she is entitled to interest on the trust fund, cites Cowan v. Henika (1897), 19 Ind. App. 40, 48 N. E. 809, where the court said: “One of the most important of the duties of a trustee is to invest the trust fund in such manner that it shall be safe and yield a reasonable rate of income to the cestui que trust, and if the trust estáte is money the trustee is chargeable with interest.”

Stumph v. Pfeiffer (1877), 58 Ind. 472, and State, ex rel., v. Sanders (1878), 62 Ind. 562, 30 Am. Rep. 203, are cited by the court in support of the above statement. Those cases, however, relate to the duties of guardians, where the statute defining such duties expressly requires the guardian to manage the estate for the best interest of the wards. The facts in the Cowan case are not fully set out in the opinion, but if the evidence in that case disclosed that the trustee had converted the money to his own use, the statement concerning interest was a correct statement of the law applicable to facts.

*83 In Stanley’s Estate v. Pence (1903), 160 Ind. 636, 66 N. E. 51, 67 N. E. 441, where the trustee used the money by investing it in real estate for his own benefit, the court, after stating that it would be wholly inequitable not to charge him with the legal rate of interest, said: “Asa general rule, in the absence of anything to the contrary, the question of requiring a trustee to pay interest on trust funds is one which must depend upon the facts and circumstances in each particular case; and where good conscience requires that the trustee be charged with interest, the .payment thereof ought to be exacted.” And in Gilbert v. Welsch (1881), 75 Ind. 557, 561, the court said: “The rule, which requires that trust funds be kept separate from individual moneys or investments, can not be relaxed with safety. It is well settled, that, if a trustee deposit the trust fund in bank, in his own name, he will be charged with interest upon it, and, if a loss occur, through failure of the bank, or otherwise, he must suffer it.”

In Lewis v. Hershey (1910), 45 Ind. App. 104, 90 N. E. 332, the. appellant filed a claim against her grandfather’s estate to recover a fund which the decedent had held in trust. The court, after reviewing the evidence, quoted from Stanley’s Estate v. Pence, supra,

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Bluebook (online)
147 N.E. 724, 89 Ind. App. 79, 1925 Ind. App. LEXIS 216, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/hinchman-admr-v-fry-indctapp-1925.