Stewart v. Harrison

50 So. 2d 624, 210 Miss. 750, 1951 Miss. LEXIS 311
CourtMississippi Supreme Court
DecidedFebruary 5, 1951
DocketNo. 37758
StatusPublished
Cited by2 cases

This text of 50 So. 2d 624 (Stewart v. Harrison) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Mississippi Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Stewart v. Harrison, 50 So. 2d 624, 210 Miss. 750, 1951 Miss. LEXIS 311 (Mich. 1951).

Opinion

Kyle, J.

This is a suit filed in the chancery court of Sharkey County by W. L. Harrison, complainant, against W. Herbert Stewart, trustee, et al., defendants, in which the [753]*753complainant seeks to recover the sum of $15,000 as commissions for services rendered by him as a real estate agent under an oral agreement alleged to have been made with him by the defendant W. Herbert Stewart, Trustee, for the sale of approximately 16,000 acres of land in Sharkey County, Mississippi, belonging to the estate of Prank B. Houston, deceased. The defendant W. Herbert Stewart, Trustee, being a nonresident of the State of Mississippi, the suit was begun by the issuance of an attachment writ which was levied upon the land.

The facts, as disclosed by the record, are substantially as follows:

Prank B. Houston, who appears to have been a native of the State of Iowa and at the time of his death a resident of the City of Chicago, Illinois, died January 3, 1925. At the time of his death he was the owner of large tracts of land in Washington County, Mississippi, and Sharkey County, Mississippi, in addition to other properties located in the State of Illinois and elsewhere. He left a last will and testament which was duly admitted to probate in the State of Illinois, and which was also duly probated upon an authenticated copy thereof in the chancery court of Washington County, Mississippi. In his will the decedent appointed Andrew T. Greeley, Walter A. Graff, and W. Herbert Stewart as executors and trustees of the will. Under the terms of the will Andrew T. Greeley was designated as the active executor and trustee, and the other two executors and trustees were to serve in an advisory capacity. It was expressly stipulated, however, that upon the death of any of the trustees the survivors or survivor should execute the trust.

After the death of the testator the three trustees qualified and acted as such until the death of Walter A. Graff, who died on April 21, 1927. After the death of Graff, Andrew T. Greeley and W. Herbert Stewart continued to serve as trustees of the estate until the death of Greeley on September 17, 1947. After the death of [754]*754Greeley, the above named W. Herbert Stewart became the sole surviving trustee.

The testator in his will devised and bequeathed his property to the above named trustees, to be held in trust for the uses and purposes set forth in the .will. And in his will the testator directed that the net income from the properties be divided equally among his brother and three sisters during their lifetime, and that the corpus of the estate after the deaths of the life beneficiaries be divided among certain religious and charitable organizations named in the will in the manner provided therein.

There was a considerable amount of litigation over the estate during the years that immediately followed the death of the testator, and in 1929 a decree was entered in the Superior Court of Cook County, Illinois, providing for an agreed settlement of the controversies which had existed between the heirs-at-law and the charitable organizations mentioned in the will. This agreement appears to have provided generally for a distribution of the income among the life beneficiaries with a division of the corpus of the estate to be made after the death of the life beneficiaries, among the heirs-at-law and the charitable organizations mentioned in the will, it being agreed that half of the corpus of the estate should go to the heirs-at-law, and the remaining half of the corpus of the estate to the so-called “charities”. The terms of this decree were later incorporated into and approved by a decree of the chancery court of Washington County dated March 20, 1929. Prior to the date of that decree the lands owned by the testator and situated in Washington County, Mississippi, had been disposed of by the trustees; and under the terms of the decree of the chancery court of Washington County dated March 20, 1929, the trustees were authorized and directed to sell the lands in Sharkey County for not less than $265,000. In that decree it was expressly provided that all of the heirs-at-law of the said testator, who were parties to the suit and whose names appear in the decree, should execute [755]*755individually and as heirs-at-law of Frank B. Houston, deceased, and deliver to the trustees any and all deeds of conveyance, assignments and other instruments necessary or required from time to time to transfer, convey and release all of their right, title and interest in and to the Mississippi assets or the Illinois assets, real and personal, to enable the executors and trustees to convey and deliver good title to the Mississippi assets and the Illinois assets of every kind and character.

The complainant in his bill of complaint alleged that for many years he had aided and assisted the trustees in looking after the Sharkey County lands belonging to the estate, and that the trustees agreed that if the complainant would send them a purchaser for the lands who was ready, able and willing to buy they would allow him a 5% commission on the sale of the property; that the complainant acting on these verbal assurances of the trustees had spent a considerable amount of time and money in undertaking to find a purchaser for the property. But notwithstanding the efforts made by the complainant to find a purchaser no sale of the lands had been made at the time of the death of Andrew T. Greeley on September 17, 1947.

On May 24, 1946, Cora M. Houston and others, heirs-at-law of Frank B. Houston, deceased, filed a petition in the chancery court of Washington County, Mississippi, for an accounting by the trustees and in their petition asked that the court restrain and enjoin the trustees from selling any of the real estate situated in the State of Mississippi pending the filing of such account, without the approval of the court; and on May 31, 1946, the chancellor signed an order directing that a writ be issued by the clerk requiring Andrew T. Greeley and W. Herbert Stewart, as executors and trustees under the will of the deceased, to account in detail for their administration of the trust estate from the date of their appointment, and pending the filing of such account and the approval thereof by the court, to refrain from disposing of, by sale [756]*756or otherwise, -any of the property, real or personal, of the said Frank B. Houston, deceased, located in the State of Mississippi, until after such proposed sale, or other proposed disposition thereof, had been submitted to and approved by the court. A copy of this writ was ordered to be served upon the executors and trustees and notice thereof to be given to the other parties. A lis pendens notice of the above mentioned suit was filed in the office of the chancery court clerk of Sharkey County, Mississippi, on June 1, 1946, and was entered upon the lis pendens record book.

No accounting had been made by the trustees, as required by the above mentioned order of the chancery court of Washington County, at the time of the death of Andrew T. Greeley on September 17, 1947. Stewart, however, testified that prior to the death of Greeley the trustees had employed Haskins & Sells, expert accountants of Chicago, Illinois, to prepare the twenty year account which the court had ordered the trustees to file, and that these accountants were working on the account at the time Mr.. Greeley died in 1947. After Greeley’s death Stewart retained the services of Haskins & Sells to bring the account down to date. But the account was not actually completed and filed until several months later.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
50 So. 2d 624, 210 Miss. 750, 1951 Miss. LEXIS 311, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/stewart-v-harrison-miss-1951.