Michigan Trust Co. v. Ferry

175 F. 667, 99 C.C.A. 221, 1910 U.S. App. LEXIS 4190
Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit·Decided January 10, 1910·No. No. 3,107·Published·Cited by 16 cases

Opinion

SANBORN, Circuit Judge.

The Michigan Trust Company, a corporation of the state of Michigan, brought this action in the Circuit Court of the District of Utah to recover $915,355.08 from Edward P. Perry, a citizen of that district. The Circuit Court sustained a demurrer to the plaintiff’s complaint and denied a motion to amend it, and these rulings are assigned as error. The material facts set forth in the complaint and the proposed amendment are these: In the year 1867 the defendant, Edward P. Ferry, who was then a citizen of Michigan, was appointed executor of the will of his deceased father, William M. Ferry, by the probate court of the county of Ottawa, in the state of Michigan. He qualified as such executor, entered upon the discharge of the duties of his office, filed two annual accounts, one in March, 1869, and another in March, 1870, and took possession and disposed of a large amount of property of the estate. In 1878, he removed from Michigan and became a resident and citizen of Utah. On February 13, 1901, he was adjudged to be an incompetent person by the district court of the Third judicial district of the state of Utah, his sons, W. Mont Ferry and Edward S. Ferry, citizens of Utah, were by that court appointed guardians of his person and of his estate, and have since acted as such.

On June 26, 1903, residuary legatees and devisees under the will of William M. Ferry filed in the probate court in Michigan their petition wherein they prayed that Edward P. Ferry should be removed as executor of his father’s will, “that he or his representatives be ordered to account forthwith to said court for the residue of said estate of said deceased which was unadministered, for the appointment of the Michigan Trust Company, plaintiff herein, or some other suitable person, as administrator de bonis non with the will annexed of said estate, and that such probate court make such other and further order in the premises as to it might seem proper.” Thereupon the probate court made an order that the petition should be heard on July 21, 1903, caused a notice of the petition and of the time and place of the hearing thereon [671]*671fo he published in a newspaper as required by the statutes of Michigan, u copy of the order was served on Edward P. Ferry and upon his guardians in the state of Utah, the district court of Utah ordered that the guardians of the estate of Edward P. Ferry be permitted to defend ¡■gainst the claim of this petition, and these guardians retained attorneys who undertook such a de fense and were paid by the district court out of the estate of Edward P. Ferry in Utah. On motion of these attorneys the probate court of Ottawa county appointed one of them guardian ad litem and next friend of Edward P. Ferry, and he filed an answer to the petition of the legatees and devisees and a cross-petition wherein lie alleged that Edward P. Ferry had fully administered and accounted for the estate of his father and prayed that he he discharged as executor. An answer to this cross-petition was filed, there was a hearing upon the issues presented by these pleadings, and thereafter the Michigan probate court found that the estate of William M. Ferry Lad not been fully administered, that Edward P. Ferry was not entitled to an order closing it, that it was his duty to render a true account of Ms doings as executor, that he had failed to do so, that the probate court had been compelled to and had made such an account, that: there were errors, mistakes, and fraud in the rendition of the two annual accounts made by Edward P. Ferry as executor in 1869 and 3870, which die court had corrected, that large amounts of money and of property of the estate of his father had come to the hands of Edward P. Ferry .is executor which he had misappropriated and converted to his individual use, that “Edward P. Ferry, executor, is indebted to the estate of Rev. William M. Ferry, deceased, at: this date, upon balance of account, in the full and true sum of one million two hundred and twenty thousand four hundred and seventy-three and 44/ioo dollars ($1,220,-473.4-1), and that said sum of money is now justly due and owing by -aid Edward P. Ferry to said estate, over and above all legal set-offs or counterclaims,” and this court ordered and decreed that the prayer of the cross-petition he denied, that Edward P. Ferry be removed from Ids office of executor, that the Michigan Trust Company be appointed administrator de bonis non with the will annexed of the estate of William M. Ferry upon the filing of its acceptance of the trust, that as Edward P. Ferry is himself a residuary legatee of one-fourth of the residue of the estate of his father he should not he required to pay over that portion of the amount due from him as executor to the estate, hut that: “lire remainder of the indebtedness owing by said Edward P. Ferry, said executor to the estate of said William M. Ferry, deceased, is the sum of nine hundred and fifteen thousand three hundred and fifty-live and os/io<> dollars ($915,355.08), and it is further ordered, adjudged and decreed that said Edward P. Ferry is individually liable therefor to the estate of William M. Ferry, deceased, and that, within sixty days from this date, said Edward P. Ferry, said executor, do pay the sum of nine hundred and fifteen thousand three hundred and fifty-five and 08/ioo dollars ($915,355.08) to the Michigan Trust Company, administrator de bonis non with the will annexed of the estate of said William M. Ferry, deceased, together with interest on said sum from this date until paid at the rate of five (5%) per cent, per annum.” After this order and decree was made the guardian ad [672]*672litem and next friend of Edward P. Ferry tried to take an appeal therefrom, blit did not succeed. ,

Has a probate court which lawfully appoints one executor of an estate jurisdiction upon substituted service of notice upon him in another jurisdiction to adjudicate his individual liability for the taking of property of the estate from himself as executor and the conversion of it to his own personal benefit? If so, has such a court jurisdiction to determine and fix this individual liability without notice to him that such an adjudication would be sought and if warranted by the proof might be rendered ?

The cause of action set forth in the complaint rests upon the decree of the probate court of Ottawa county that Ferry, the individual, is liable for a fixed amount of damages for his taking from himself as executor and his conversion to his own use of property of the estate which came to his hands as executor. If that court had jurisdiction to render that adjudication the complaint stated a good cause of action; if it did not*have that jurisdiction the demurrer was rightly sustained. If another person had been the executor and Ferry had taken from him in Michigan property of the estate of his father, had converted it to his own use, and then left the state, there could have been no doubt that no court in Michigan could'have acquired jurisdiction to determine his liability therefor by the publication of any summons or notice, or by the service of any notice upon him beyond the boundary of the state. Personal service upon him within the jurisdiction of the court, within the state of Michigan, or his voluntary appearance would have been indispensable to the acquisition of jurisdiction to determine his liability.

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Michigan Trust Co. v. Ferry, 175 F. 667, 99 C.C.A. 221, 1910 U.S. App. LEXIS 4190 (8th Cir. 1910).

175 F. 667 (Michigan Trust Co. v. Ferry) — published by Counsel Stack Legal Research, free access to 12M+ legal documents.

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