In Re Cluck's Estate

95 N.W.2d 161, 168 Neb. 13, 1959 Neb. LEXIS 2
CourtNebraska Supreme Court
DecidedFebruary 27, 1959
Docket34506, 34507
StatusPublished
Cited by13 cases

This text of 95 N.W.2d 161 (In Re Cluck's Estate) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Nebraska Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
In Re Cluck's Estate, 95 N.W.2d 161, 168 Neb. 13, 1959 Neb. LEXIS 2 (Neb. 1959).

Opinion

Chappell, J.

In these cases, two separate transcripts on appeals from two separate judgments rendered by the district court for Scotts Bluff County were filed in this court, but it was stipulated that each case involved the same identical issue and that such actions should be consolidated, heard, and determined as one with but one brief filed by each of the parties.

In separate petitions filed in the district court for Scotts Bluff County on March 18, 1958, in appeals from the county court of Scotts Bluff -County, Arthur Storm and Rose V. Storm, his wife, hereinafter called plaintiffs, sought to have vacated and set aside an order rendered on May 19,. 1954, by the county court barring claims in *14 In re Estate of Millard F. Cluck, Jr., deceased. Plaintiffs therein also sought to be allowed and permitted to file exhibits A, separately so designated and attached to each petition, as claims against said estate, and to have a hearing on their petitions after due notice thereof. Thereafter, on April 4, 1958, R. LaVonne Cluck, as administratrix of the estate of her deceased husband, Millard F. Cluck, Jr., and as guardian of the estates of two named minor children, filed a general demurrer to each of plaintiffs’ petitions. On June 18, 1958, said demurrers were each sustained. Plaintiffs elected to stand upon their petitions, whereupon they were each dismissed at plaintiffs’ costs. Plaintiffs’ motions for rehearing were each thereafter overruled and they separately appealed, assigning in the consolidated brief that: “The Court erred in sustaining the Demurrers to Appellants’ Petitions.” We do not sustain the assignment.

Plaintiffs’ petitions and claims attached thereto were originally filed in the county court on September 13, 1957. Their separate petitions with claims attached, which plaintiffs filed on appeal in the district court, were identical in form and substance except that the claim of Arthur Storm was for damage to his car and for medical and hospital expenses for his wife, Rose V. Storm, whose separate claim was for her alleged permanent injuries. Such damages, as far as important here, were alleged to have been proximately caused by the negligence of Millard F. Cluck, Jr., when, on November 13, 1953, a car owned and driven by him and one owned by Arthur Storm but driven by his wife, Rose V. Storm, collided on a highway in Saunders County.

The general rule is that: “A general demurrer admits all allegations of fact in the pleading to which it is addressed, which are issuable, relevant, material, and well pleaded; but does not admit the pleader’s conclusions of law or fact.

“In passing on a demurrer to a petition, the court will consider an exhibit attached thereto and made a part *15 thereof, if the allegations stated therein either aid the petition in stating a cause of action or charge facts going to avoid liability on the part of the defendant.” Babin v. County of Madison, 161 Neb. 536, 73 N. W. 2d 807.

Plaintiffs’ separate petitions, with claims separately attached thereto, and filed in the district court, each alleged in substance as follows: That the estate of Millard F. Cluck, Jr., deceased, was indebted to plaintiffs in a specified amount as disclosed by the attached claims; that on November 13, 1953, plaintiffs were residents of Saunders County but later became residents of Douglas County; that Millard F. Cluck, Jr., a resident of Scotts Bluff County, died intestate; that on November 20, 1953, proceedings were instituted in the county court of Scotts Bluff County for the appointment of an administratrix of his estate; and that notice of the filing of said petition was duly ordered and published 3 successive weeks in the Scottsbluff Daily Star-Herald, a legal newspaper of general circulation and published daily except Monday in Scotts Bluff County. A copy of such notice was set forth verbatim in plaintiffs’ petitions. However, plaintiffs then alleged that they had no notice or knowledge of such publication and that same was not called to their attention by mail or otherwise.

Plaintiffs then alleged that R. LaVonne Cluck, the widow of Millard F. Cluck, Jr., deceased, was duly appointed administratrix of his estate; and that she at all times knew the circumstances of her husband’s death in the accident of November 13, 1953, and the probable claim of plaintiffs for damages. Plaintiffs also alleged that on December 16, 1953, an order in said estate for notice to creditors was duly rendered by the county court and that said notice was duly published for 3 successive weeks in the legal Scotts Bluff newspaper aforesaid. A copy of said notice, which provided: “Notice is hereby given that all claims against said estate must be filed on or before the 12th day of April, 1954, or be forever barred, and that a hearing on claims will be *16 held in this Court on April 13th, 1954, at ten o’clock A. M.” was' set forth verbatim in plaintiffs’ petitions. However, in like manner as heretofore set forth, plaintiffs alleged that they had no notice or knowledge of such publication.

Plaintiffs also each alleged that on May 19,' 1954, the county court rendered a judgment in said estate barring claims.' A copy of said judgment was then set forth verbatim. As far as important here, it provided:- “IT IS THEREFORE. CONSIDERED ORDERED AND ADJUDGED by the court that all claims not heretofore filed herein against the estate be, and they hereby are, forever barred.” However, in like manner as heretofore set forth, plaintiffs alleged that they had no notice or knowledge of such judgment.

Plaintiff's then alleged that unless said judgment barring claims was vacated and set aside and plaintiffs were permitted to file their claims against the estate, they would be deprived of valuable property rights without notice, knowledge, or an opportunity to be heard. Their prayer was to have such judgment vacated and set aside, for permission to file their claims, and for hearing thereon after due notice was given.

At the outset it should be noted that Millard F. Cluck, Jr., was admittedly instantly killed in Saunders County on November 13, 1953, in the presence of plaintiffs and in the same accident as here involved. Plaintiffs and their counsel must have then known or could have timely learned by the exercise of any diligence that decedent was a resident of Scotts Bluff County and that his estate was being administered in that county. As a matter of fact, as hereinafter noted, plaintiffs and their counsel did soon learn of that fact, but by their own neglect, fault, and want of due diligence they took no timely steps to protect and preserve their rights.

In that connection, it has now become elementary that: “Where cases are interwoven and interdependent and the controversy involved has already been considered *17 and detérmined by the court in former proceedings involving one of the parties now before it, the court has the right ánd should examine its own records and take judicial notice of its own proceedings and judgments in the former action. Such cases are exceptions to the general rule warranted from the necessity of giving effect to former holdings which finally decide questions of fact and law.” Cover v. Platte Valley Public Power & Irr. Dist., 162 Neb. 146, 75 N. W. 2d 661.

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Bluebook (online)
95 N.W.2d 161, 168 Neb. 13, 1959 Neb. LEXIS 2, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/in-re-clucks-estate-neb-1959.