Jersak v. Risen, Ex'x

1944 OK 278, 152 P.2d 374, 194 Okla. 423, 1944 Okla. LEXIS 486
CourtSupreme Court of Oklahoma
DecidedOctober 17, 1944
DocketNo. 31069.
StatusPublished
Cited by9 cases

This text of 1944 OK 278 (Jersak v. Risen, Ex'x) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Oklahoma primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Jersak v. Risen, Ex'x, 1944 OK 278, 152 P.2d 374, 194 Okla. 423, 1944 Okla. LEXIS 486 (Okla. 1944).

Opinion

GIBSON, V. C. J.

Defendant below appeals from an order of the district court denying motion to recall execution issued on a money judgment.

The ground assigned in the motion was that the judgment had become dormant and had not been revived in the time and manner provided by law.

The plaintiff below died testate soon after obtaining the judgment, and approximately five months thereafter the defendant in error was appointed executrix of his will. In less than one year after her appointment, but approximately 17 months subsequent to the death of the judgment creditor, the executrix moved for and obtained an order reviving the judgment.

The motion to revive excused the delay of five months in the appointment of the executrix by asserting that such delay was caused by objections to the probate of the will lodged by certain of the testator’s heirs.

The execution in question was issued some three years after the executrix was appointed.

Defendant’s contention is that the order of revivor was made more than a year after the date it could have been first made, and without her consent, and was therefore void. 12 O. S. 1941 §§ 1072, 1077, 1078; Bartlett Mortgage Co. v. Morrison, 183 Okla. 214, 81 P. 2d 318.

But the trial court held that the proceedings to revive were regular, and that the order of revivor was made within the time allowed by law, and, by reason of the provisions of 12 O. S. 1941 § 1066, no notice to or consent of defendant was necessary to the validity of the order.

Defendant assigns the holding as error.

After judgment, a deceased party’s personal representatives may be made parties thereto, and a dormant judgment may be revived in the same manner as is prescribed for reviving actions before judgment. Sections 1077, 1078, supra.

The time for making the order of revivor in the names of plaintiff’s personal representatives is fixed by section 1072, supra. The applicable portion thereof reads as follows:

“An order to revive an action, in the names of. the representatives or success- or of a plaintiff, may be made forthwith, but shall not be made without the consent of the defendant, after the expiration of one year from the time the order might have been first made.”

Said section 1066, so far as material here, reads as follows:

“If the order is made for the revivor upon the death of any plaintiff in the names of his representatives or successors to whom his right has passed, or by the consent of the parties in the case of the death of a defendant, the action shall forthwith stand revived without notice.”

A comparison of the two latter sections discloses that an action may be revived in the names of a deceased *425 plaintiff’s representatives, without consent or notice, within one year from the time the order of revivor might have been first made.

Inasmuch as consent to the revivor is wanting, the question here is, Was the order of revivor made within , one year from the time the order might have been first made?

It is urged on strength of the holding in Glazier v. Heneybuss, 19 Okla. 316, 91 P. 872, that the order came too late. The pertinent facts and holding there are as follows:

“On the 12th day of May, 1902, she suggested the death of the deceased, and, upon giving thirty days’ notice from that date, had she filed her petition, she could have been appointed the legal representative and had the order of revival ‘made forthwith’; but, instead, the order of revival was not made until December 1, 1903, or nearly 18 months after the time in which it ‘might have been made.’ Without the consent of the defendants, and no showing for the delay, can it be said that the district court erred in finding that the order of revival was not made within one year from the time it ‘might have been first made?’ . . .
“It is true the order of revival could not have been made until the appointment of the administratrix; but it was within the power of plaintiff in error to have had that appointment made. It was a condition precedent to the order of revival. The law required her to act. She offers no evidence explanatory of the delay. She knew of the death of the plaintiff. The law said: ‘You may be appointed administratrix, if you file your petition and give the required notice.’ There were no other petitions filed for that appointment; and her petition, when filed, was not contested.”

The fact that the court there took into consideration the absence of any excuse for delay in reviewing the action of the trial court, in holding that revivor was not had within the time it might have been made, evinces not only a recognition in&t circumstances other than mere lapse of xkre may be determinative of the time when the operative period of the one year shall begin but also that it is incumbent upon the trial court to take same into consideration.

In the instant case the delay in the appointment and qualification of executrix is accounted for by contest over decedent’s will. Immediately on the conclusion thereof the executrix qualified, and within one year therefrom the revivor was sought and had. It is not contended the contest’was not sufficient to delay the appointment of the executrix but the effect thereof is sought to be nullified upon two grounds, one, the right to an appointment of a special administrator who could within a year after death have moved for the revivor, and, the other, that under the decisions of this court the district court was without jurisdiction to make the order of revivor after the period of one year following death.

Touching the first ground mentioned, we hold that the language “upon the death of the plaintiff in an action, it may be revived in the names of his representatives, to whom his right has passed,” as used in 12 O. S. 1941 § 1068, contemplates in case of personal assets an administrator or executor having general powers as such under the law. Supporting this conclusion is Rexroad et al. v. H. N. Johnson, 4 Kan. App. 333, wherein, in construing the quoted statute, there is said:

“In determining in whose name the action should be revived, we must determine who would have been the proper party to bring the suit if it had been commenced after the death of the plaintiff. To whom do the rights of the decedent pass? This is clearly provided for by paragraph 4527 of the General Statutes of 1889, which reads as follows:
“ ‘Upon the death of the plaintiff in an action, it may be revived in the names of his representatives, to whom his right has passed. Where his right has passed to his personal representatives, the revivor shall be in their names; where it has passed to his heirs or devisees, who could support the action if brought anew, the revivor may be in their names.’
*426 “There can be no question but that the rights of the plaintiff in this case passed, to the administrator. The subject matter of this action is part of his personal estate, and will be subject to the payment of his debts if the replevin is sustained, and will be charged against his estate if the present judgment is affirmed.”

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Bluebook (online)
1944 OK 278, 152 P.2d 374, 194 Okla. 423, 1944 Okla. LEXIS 486, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/jersak-v-risen-exx-okla-1944.