National Bank v. Voigt Estate

99 N.W.2d 504, 357 Mich. 647
CourtMichigan Supreme Court
DecidedNovember 24, 1959
DocketDocket No. 29, Calendar No. 48,016
StatusPublished
Cited by7 cases

This text of 99 N.W.2d 504 (National Bank v. Voigt Estate) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Michigan Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
National Bank v. Voigt Estate, 99 N.W.2d 504, 357 Mich. 647 (Mich. 1959).

Opinion

Dethmers, C. J.

Plaintiffs are the executors of the will of Jacob Borin, deceased, and the trustees under the will of Nathan Borin, deceased. The 2 decedents died possessed of the lessor’s interest in a 99-year lease of real estate. Defendant bank is the administrator c.t.a. of the estate of Augusta L. Voigt, deceased, who held the lessee’s interest at her death. Involved in this matter are plaintiffs’ claims, filed against defendant estate, for rent, taxes, insurance premiums and expenses for repairs to become due and payable in the future under the lease. The probate court disallowed the claims. On appeal the circuit court allowed them. Defendant appeals.

The circuit court allowed the claims as “contingent claims”, applying the provisions of OL 1948, § 708.25 et seq. (Stat Ann 1943 B»ev § 27.3178[435] et seq.), and ordered defendant bank, as fiduciary of the Voigt estate:

“to retain in his possession funds and assets of the estate to pay the same as and when it becomes absolute ; and further ordering said fiduciary not to close the. estate until the appellants’ contingent claim has become absolute and an opportunity for its presentation and its allowance given as provided by law, or until any liability on the part of the estate upon such claim has been terminated, or until appellant-claimant has been fully and adequately protected by the giving of .a surety bond in such amount and in such form as may meet the approval of the probate court for the county of Wayne, conditioned for payment of said contingent claim.”

Plaintiffs urge In re Beecher’s Estate, 113 Mich 667, in support of the circuit judge’s holding that the claims are contingent. In that case “The question presented is one simply of power.” Did the probate court, upon application of the administrator of an estate holding the lessee’s interest in a 100-year lease, have the power to authorize him, as it did in that casé, [650]*650to compromise the lessor’s continuing claim for rent and, in effecting that compromise, to purchase the leased property for the estate? The statute in effect at that time expressly provided therefor, as it does now. No problem was presented as to whether the claim for rent in Beecher was contingent or absolute or whether the lessor was entitled to have assets of lessee’s estate set aside to meet future rent. Following the plain language of the statute, the Court simply held that the probate court did have power to make the order for compromise settlement and purchase requested by the administrator, rejecting the claim that the heirs were thereby deprived of vested rights to have the money of the estate divided among them rather than to have it invested in the real estate. That is not the problem in the instant case. The decision in Beecher is of no assistance here.

Plaintiffs also urge 2 divorce cases, Braffett v. Braffett, 308 Mich 506, and LaBarge v. LaBarge, 312 Mich 157, in support of their position. A holding that the possible right to future alimony, which the chancery court granting the decree may at any time increase, decrease or terminate, gives rise to a claim of such contingent nature as to come within the meaning of the statute here invoked is no authority for a like holding with respect to the express and specific obligations assumed by a lessee under a lease.

In the case of In re Estate of Jeffers, 272 Mich 127, plaintiffs were the vendors in a land contract and decedent the vendee. Plaintiffs filed a claim against decedent’s estate for the unpaid balance under the contract, and filed a chancery action seeking to have a trust impressed in the amount of such claim upon the assets of the estate. The 2 matters were considered together on appeal here. With respect to plaintiffs’ claim in that case this Court, in denying them the relief prayed for, said (p 136):

[651]*651“Plaintiffs’ claim was not a contingent claim (Osmun v. Oakland Circuit Judge, 107 Mich 27); it was a liability upon a fixed and definite contract in writing. Its existence or nonexistence did not depend upon some contingency which might never happen (24 CJ p 293), a contingent claim being one where the liability depends upon some future event which may or may not happen, and, therefore, makes it now wholly uncertain whether there ever will be a liability. Sargent’s Adm’r v. Kimball’s Adm’r, 37 Vt 320.
“A contingent claim is one which does not exist but may possibly hereafter arise, one whose possible existence depends upon an uncertain future event— upon a contingency.
“The claim here involved was not contingent, but absolute — fixed by definite contract in writing signed by the deceased in his lifetime, and, therefore, the statutory provisions (CL 1929, §§ 15708-15723) relating to contingent claims have no application.”

Plaintiffs here say that the quoted language was not necessary to decision in Jeffers, and was “dictum in its entirety.” That this Court did not then think so, as we do not now, appears from the statement in the Jeffers opinion (p 137) that the bill of complaint “asks substantially the same relief in equity that might have been had in probate court had plaintiffs’ claim been a contingent one properly proved and established.” Dictum or not, we deem it expressive of a sound view of the law, which effectuates the manifest intent of the legislature in enacting the statutory provisions here considered. Plaintiffs say, however, that even if it be held, in accord with Jeffers, that the claims here are not contingent, they are, nevertheless, entitled to the relief granted below under CL 1948, § 708.25 (Stat Ann 1943 Rev § 27-.3178 [435]) because that section no longer speaks in terms of “contingent claims” as it did at the time of Osmun v. Oakland Circuit Judge, 107 Mich 27, [652]*652relied upon in the Jeffers opinion, and that the section expressly applies to rent to become due under a lease. The difficulty for plaintiffs is that that is not the section providing for retention of funds in an estate for the payment of future claims. It provides only, with respect to such claims for rent, that, as done in Beecher, the administrator may compromise the claim and, if he wishes and the court approves, he may, in effecting such compromise, purchase the property for the estate. As before noted, that is not the problem in this case. It is the next section upon which plaintiffs must rely for power in the court to order retention of estate assets, as done by the circuit court in this case, to meet future payments when due. That section, as is true also of the succeeding sections, makes no mention of rent as such but speaks in express terms of “contingent claims”. Hence the applicability of Jeffers to the case at bar.

We hold that the claims for amounts to become due in the future under the lease are not contingent, and that the court erred in granting the relief it did under the statute here considered. Death of the holder of the lessee’s interest does not entitle the lessor to additional security or benefits not provided for in the lease and not enjoyed by the lessor during lessee’s lifetime, such as having the lessee’s assets sequestered or, in lieu thereof, a surety bond to guarantee payments becoming clue in the future.

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Bluebook (online)
99 N.W.2d 504, 357 Mich. 647, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/national-bank-v-voigt-estate-mich-1959.