In re the Estate of Garmes

159 Misc. 470, 287 N.Y.S. 52, 1936 N.Y. Misc. LEXIS 1065
CourtNew York Supreme Court
DecidedFebruary 5, 1936
StatusPublished
Cited by5 cases

This text of 159 Misc. 470 (In re the Estate of Garmes) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering New York 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 the Estate of Garmes, 159 Misc. 470, 287 N.Y.S. 52, 1936 N.Y. Misc. LEXIS 1065 (N.Y. Super. Ct. 1936).

Opinion

Brower, J.

The committee of an incompetent veteran, on the examination of his annual inventory and account, made claim before the referee to (1) commissions on income at the rate of five per cent from March 24, 1920, to March 24, 1935, pursuant to section 1384-k of the Civil Practice Act, and also to (2) additional compensation by reason of alleged extraordinary services rendered by said committee.

Prior to July 1, 1929, the provisions, as then in force, of section 1376 of the Civil Practice Act (as enacted by Laws of 1920, chap. 925) governed the right to compensation which committees of incompetents were entitled to, and the provisions of said section applied to committees of veterans as well as of non-veterans. The section entitled committees of the property of incompetents to the same commissions which were allowed to executors, administrators and testamentary trustees. Under section 285 of the Surrogate’s Court Act on a settlement of the accounts of any such fiduciary, he is entitled to an allowance for his services at the rate of five per cent for receiving and paying out all sums of money not exceeding $2,000, at the rate of two and one-half per cent for receiving and paying out additional sums not amounting to more than $20,000 and at other specified rates on additional sums. The courts adopted the practice of apportioning the commissions of such fiduciaries for receiving and paying out moneys, one-half for receiving and one-half for paying out (Matter of Smith, 86 Misc. 136, and cases there cited), and such was the apportionment of commissions which committees of incompetents were allowed under the aforesaid provisions of section 1376. (Matter of Osgood, 119 Misc. 251.) Under the law as it read on the aforesaid date, the courts construed [472]*472said section to mean that committees were entitled to no commissions except by award on judicial settlement of their accounts. (Matter of Osgood, supra; Matter of Longo, 226 App. Div. 285; Matter of Martin, 135 Misc. 118.)

Effective on July 1, 1929, chapter 340 of the Laws of 1929 enacted article 81-A of the Civil Practice Act (§ 1384-a et seq.), the several sections of which apply only to incompetent veterans and infant wards of the United States Veterans’ Bureau. The provisions of said article are not a repeal of or a substitute for the basic or statutory law of this State relating to incompetents, but are to be read in conjunction with article 81 of the Civil Practice Act (§ 1356 et seq.), and any other pertinent provisions of law relating to incompetents, and any provisions of law inconsistent with its provisions are to that extent superseded by its provisions. (Civ. Prac. Act, § 1384-b.) Section 1384-k of said article deals with the question of compensation payable only to committees of veterans, and must be read with section 1376 as it read prior to July 1> 1929, and, in so far as any provisions of the former section are inconsistent with the provisions of section 1376, the provisions of the latter section must yield. We have already considered the right to commissions conferred by section 1376 alone. When section 1384-k became a law, any doubt as to whether a committee of a veteran might have commissions on corpus received from a preceding committee was in express terms resolved in the negative. On the other hand, it raised a question as to whether or not the usual rates theretofore applicable to committees of veterans still held good, and also whether commissions to which such committees were entitled thereby were still to be apportioned according to the theretofore existing rule or were to be allowed in full on receiving the estate. The particular provisions of section 1384-k giving rise to these doubts declare that the compensation for “ administering the estate of a ward shall be fixed by the court not to exceed five per centum of the income of the ward during any year.” As the provisions of section 1376 read when these provisions were enacted, commissions had even then to be first allowed by the court, and so the provision that the court shall fix the commissions did not change any existing requirements; fixing them at not to exceed five per centum ” was a provision of some significance, nevertheless, and by this elastic language the court was given discretionary power to fix the ordinary commissions to which committees of veterans in the several States adopting the uniform Veterans’ Guardianship Act may be entitled, computed at the same rates that committees generally by the laws of such States respectively are entitled, so long as the court does not fix and award com[473]*473missions in an amount exceeding the limitation specified. Had the intent of the uniform act been to make commissions in all respects uniform throughout the several States, it would doubtless have prescribed arbitrary rates or some fixed basis for their computation. The rates at which commissions were computed for committees of veterans prior to the enactment of section 1384-k survived its enactment and are the usual rates by which this court fixes the ordinary commissions of such a committee so long as and to the extent that they do not exceed the limitation specified.

No estate can ordinarily be said to be “ administered ” until it has been received by a fiduciary, then managed during his holding of it and finally duly paid over, and it is the general policy of our law with respect to those who administer a trust or estate that commissions cannot be paid or retained until judicially allowed.” (Matter of Butler, 9 N. Y. Supp. 641; 1 Con. Surr. 58, 70; Matter of Furniss, 86 App. Div. 96.) As the court said in Oakeshott v. Smith (104 App. Div. 384, 388; affd., 185 N. Y. 583): “ The right to commissions depends upon the rendition of the service and the settlement of the account. Until those two things have taken place commissions have not been earned, and an executor is not legally entitled to them. (Matter of Worthington, 141 N. Y. 9.) ” “ The compensation is given to him for his care and management of the estate, and not for the simple act of receiving and paying out.” (Wagstaff v. Lowerre, 23 Barb. 209, 226; cited with approval of this principle in Matter of Bushe, 227 N. Y. 85.) Were full commissions to be awarded or permitted to be retained for merely receiving an estate, a strong incentive to diligence and zeal would be lacking, and the temptation to be content with a lax or perfunctory administration of the estate might be encouraged. A rule awarding half commissions to the receiving and half to the paying out of the moneys is a salutary one. It is and has been the rule applicable to an executor, administrator or trustee from an early date. (Matter of Smith, 86 Misc. 136; McAlpine v. Potter, 126 N. Y. 285; Matter of Galloway, 139 Misc. 183.) Chancery looked upon trusts as honorary and not undertaken for mercenary motives, and “ the English Court of Chancery did not * * * a]]ow compensation to trustees, executors, etc., unless the same is given expressly or by implication, by the deed or will creating the trust. (Lewin on Trusts, 438.) The same rule obtained in this State until the passage, in 1817, of the act giving commissions to executors and administrators.” (Wagstaff v. Lowerre, supra, p. 223.) Under the statute passed April 15, 1817 (Laws of 1817, chap. 251), a Court of Chancery was authorized “ in the settlement of the accounts of guardians, executors and administrators * * * to make a [474]*474reasonable allowance ” to them for their services over and above their expenses.

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159 Misc. 470, 287 N.Y.S. 52, 1936 N.Y. Misc. LEXIS 1065, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/in-re-the-estate-of-garmes-nysupct-1936.