Lipperd v. Estate of Lipperd

163 S.W. 934, 181 Mo. App. 106, 1914 Mo. App. LEXIS 311
CourtMissouri Court of Appeals
DecidedFebruary 3, 1914
StatusPublished
Cited by5 cases

This text of 163 S.W. 934 (Lipperd v. Estate of Lipperd) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Missouri Court of Appeals primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Lipperd v. Estate of Lipperd, 163 S.W. 934, 181 Mo. App. 106, 1914 Mo. App. LEXIS 311 (Mo. Ct. App. 1914).

Opinion

REYNOLDS, P. J.

(after stating the facts). — The case is here on a very full abstract of the record, practically the whole record, including the record proper as well as the bill of exceptions, covering some 206-pages.

The learned counsel for appellant, while making no formal assignment of errors, present 20 points upon which they rely for a reversal of this ease, a great array of authorities being cited, which are claimed to-support the various propositions advanced by these counsel. We.do -not think any public good is to be promoted by takin'g up and considering each one of the points as made separately and at length. Doubtless [122]*122■they will appear in the official report of the case. We will add that while the points made are, for the most part supported by authority, very many of them do not meet this case. We will endeavor to dispose of them generally, with the view of determining what we consider the real, the crucial points, in this case.

While filing the account in the court without presentation to the administrator would not be sufficient as a presentation of a demand, it was obviously filed there to advise the probate court that there was a creditor, resident in that county, who held a claim against the estate of N. B. Lipperd, which she desired to have adjudicated. Hence the necessity of appointment of an administrator. There is no error in that. It has, however, been held by our court in Waltemar v. Schnick’s Estate, 102 Mo. App. 133, point 2, l. c. 139 et sec[., 76 S. W. 1053, that when the demand was presented in the probate court the administrator might be served with notice as provided by section 203, Revised Statute 1909, or that he might waive such notice and voluntarily appear, and that the service of notice or presentation or his voluntary appearance in the probate court stopped the running of the Statute ■of Limitations. We refer to this merely that what we have said above may not be held to challenge that which is decided in the Waltemar case.

It appears that at the outset and before the empanelling of a jury, counsel for defendant filed a mo-. tion requiring the clerk of the Schuyler county circuit court to send up an amended transcript and the original papers including the original demand in the case. A full transcript and the original papers required were afterwards sent up by the clerk of the circuit •court of Schuyler county and filed in the cause •on the second day of the trial. Beyond objecting ■to its filing at that time as being filed out of time, counsel for appellant made no attack upon it .and made no application for continuance of the cause. [123]*123Before this paper was filed, counsel for the respective parties had agreed in a written stipulation filed, that an office copy which had been filed was a true copy of these papers and should thereafter be considered in the cause for all purposes as if duly forwarded by the oircuit clerk of Schuyler county, in connection with and as part of the transcript of the circuit court of Schuyler county in the cause. In the light of this stipulation and in view of the fact that the full transcript was afterwards filed, it is impossible to hold that any harm resulted to appellant, either by failure to file -duly certified papers in the first instance, or after-wards filing them.

It is argued that the account, on its face, is barred by the general Statute of Limitations of this State, referring to section 1895, Revised Statutes 1909. We are unable to agree to this proposition. The account as filed appears to have been a continuing account from 1891 to the date of the death of Napoleon B. Lipperd in 1907. No administrator was appointed in this State until 1910.-

It is argued that the account is barred by the Statute of Limitations of the State of Iowa, requiring demands against an estate to be filed within one year after publication of notice of the granting of letters of administration. The application of the Iowa statute depends upon the fact of residence of the plaintiff, and there is evidence that she had been a resident of Missouri ever since 1908 and was so at the time of this trial. True she had been in Iowa between those •dates, but there is substantial evidence tending to show that she was there merely temporarily and not as a resident. If a citizen and resident of Missouri, plaintiff was not bound to go to the State of Iowa and present her demand in that court, or to the administrator acting under the laws of the State of Iowa. There being property of the decedent in this State, any creditor of the decedent, residing in this State, was en[124]*124titled to have letters of administration taken out; entitled to have the estate here administered upon in this State, and to have her claims against that estate adjudicated in her home State. That is the recognized law of our State from the earliest times.

This case really resolves itself then into one of fact as to whether plaintiff, respondent here, introduced substantial evidence at the trial of the case from which the jury had a right to conclude that plaintiff was a resident of this State when, in March, 1910, she presented her demand to this administrator, appointed' in this State, and that she had been such resident from about October, 1908, to that time, and that she had rendered the services to her brother in his lifetime, under a contract between that brother and herself,' that she was to be paid for those services.

There was substantial testimony introduced on her behalf in the trial of this case on both points; defendant’s testimony tending to show that her brother, the decedent, had solicited her to come and make her home with him in 1891; that with occasional intermissions she had done so from that time until the date of his death, following him from his different places of abode and being with him up to the time of his last departure for Oklahoma in 1906. There was substantial evidence that her services were not those of a mere domestic but of a nurse. There was substantial testimony as to the value of the services. There was substantial testimony of a promise by the decedent to pay for these services and that plaintiff rendered them in expectation of being paid. It is true that all this evidence for plaintiff was sharply contradicted by that produced on behalf of defendant, but the jury were to determine that and were warranted in finding as they did. So we find no error in the action of the court in refusing an instruction asked by defendant at the close of the case, that under the law and the evidence in the case plaintiff could not recover.

[125]*125Another instruction which was asked by defendant and refused by the court is as follows:

“In this case unless you believe from the greater weight of the evidence in the cause that notice in writing of the presentation of this claim in controversy was served on the administrator of this estate, or that he waived such presentation and notice thereof in writing within one year next after the 18th day of February, 1910, the first issue of the paper containing the notice of granting the letters in the State of Iowa to the said administrator, your verdict should be for the defendant.”

This instruction assumes that plaintiff was bound to present her claim in Iowa. Holding that if plaintiff was a citizen of and resided in Missouri from 1908 to 1911, she was not bound to do so, and ¡as the question of residence was a fact in issue, we hold that this instruction was properly refused. We do not think that section 1895, Eevised Statutes 1909, is applicable here.

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Bluebook (online)
163 S.W. 934, 181 Mo. App. 106, 1914 Mo. App. LEXIS 311, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/lipperd-v-estate-of-lipperd-moctapp-1914.