Wren v. Gayden

2 Miss. 365
Mississippi Supreme Court·Decided January 15, 1836·Published

Opinion

Mr. Justice Smith

delivered the opinion of the court; which contains all the facts arising in the cause, necessary to be stated.

In the case before us, the first question which we deem proper to examine arises upon the demurrer of Gayden, the defendant below, to those parts of complainants’ bill which seek to make him liable, as he alleges in his demurrer, upon his bonds as guardian of three of the minor children of Wily Collins, deceased; and also as security of Penny Collins upon his administration bond.

Gayden, who is one of the securities of the administratrix of Collins’s estate, shortly after the grant of letters intermarried with her; and thus became possessed, as administrator in right of his wife, of the whole property of the deceased.

In 1813, as it appears from the statements of the bill, certain persons who assumed to act, hy virtue of an order of the orphans’ court of Wilkinson county, affected to make a division of the personal property of the estate of Collins, which still continued unad-ministered in the hands of the administrator.

[366]*366By this division the whole proprety was distributed into five parts; one of which, amounting in value to one third of the whole, was set aside to Gayden, who claimed the same in right of his wife.

The remaining four parts were assigned to the four surviving children of the deceased. But anterior to the event the county of Amite had been formed, which contained the property and the residence of all of the parties. The property had in fact been located and all of the parties had continually resided at the same place, from the date of the grant of administration.

In the year following Gayden became by the appointment of the orphans’ court of Amite county guardian of Mahala Collins, now the wife of Francis Wren; of Abatha Collins, the wife of the complainant Shropshire, and of James L. Collins, who died in the year 1824, unmarried and without issue, and executed bond as guardian of each separately.

It appears that the whole of the property which had been divided, as before recited, remained hi the possession and subject to the control of Gayden down to 1816, when he delivered to John Collins the share previously set apart for him at the division; and that in the years 1819 and 1832, he delivered two more of the shares.

It further appears that the share, as before ascertained, of James L. Collins was delivered to him: but at what period it is not stated.

The complainants, in their bill, charge fraud and wilful neglect, on the part of Gayden, in the discharge of his duties as administrator; and pray that he may be compelled to account as well as guardian of the parties before mentioned, as administrator of Wiley Collins’s estate.

From this rehearsal in part of the facts stated in the bill, it is obvious, that so far as Gayden is sought to be charged in his character of guardian, there is no privity of interest between the complainants, or legal dependence between the claims sought to be enforced.

For Gaydon having executed separate guardian bonds, he cannot be held responsible to the wards jointly. His liabilities as [367]*367guardian to a portion of the complainants are separate and independent, and most obviously so when pursued in the double capacity of guardian and administrator. A bill cannot join a demand for a debt due by an individual as an executor with one for a debt due by the same individual in his private character. 4 Johns. Chan. Rep. 204. It is a well understood general rule, that courts of equity, as well as courts of law, will not take cog-nisance of distinct and separate claims or liabilities of different persons in one suit; and this, though they stand in the same relative situation. '

In the case under consideration, the relation of guardian and ward does not subsist between the appellee and all of the persons joined as complainants in the bill. The demurrer, therefore, should have been sustained, at least to some extent. A further examination into the allegations and prayer of the bill will enable us to find the extent.

The demurrer is applied to so much of the bill “ as seeks to make the defendant liable on his bond, as security of Penny Collins, and to such facts of the bill as seek to make him liable on his guardian bonds, and to Mahala Wren for the negro girl Miriam. -

The demurrer was drafted under a misconception of the allegation and prayer of the bill. ' Relief is not prayed against the defendant as security on the administration bond. He is held in the capacity of administrator, having acquired that character, and the possession and control of the intestate’s estate by marriage. Nor can it be said that this suit is founded upon any of the bonds in question, although they may constitute the evidence of the relation between the parties, and form inducements to the action. In an action on the bond, the verdict would be for damages alone; the specific property is sought in this proceeding. There appears also to be a misconception as to that part of the bill in relation to the slave Miriam; for there is no prayer to charge the defendant in respect to her. Separate property is asserted on the part of Mahala, to this negro, and it is charged as an act of bad faith in Gayden to have incorporated her with the [368]*368distributive property of the deceased, as it is alleged he knew of the existence of her claim.

If a separate right exists on the part of this complainant, her remedy must be in another form.

It appears probable that this incident could only have been introduced to give color to the charge of bad faith. The prayer of discovery in regard to Miriam is foreign to the bill.

From this view of the subject, the demurrer must be held to apply, (and so far sustainable,) to those portions of the bill which seek discovery in regard to Miriam, and which seek to make the appellee liable on his guardian bonds. The chancellor should have dismissed the bill thus far.

The questions arising upon the defendant’s plea of the nature of limitations, as applicable to the state of facts disclosed by the bill, are attended with some embarrassments, surrounded as they are with difficulty, are involved in uncertainly.

The relation which subsisted between the parties, complainant and defendant, is obviously of a trust character, and though direct in its nature, cannot be said exactly to conform to the incidents of a purely technical trust, which is a dictum of a court of equity, and is in nowise to be affected by the statute of limitations. And it is contended that, as this trust is not purely of a technical character, the allegations of the bill show a state of facts which must make the statute applicable as a rule of decision in this court.

It appears from the bill that letters of administration were granted to Mrs. Collins, the widow of the intestate, by the orphans’ court of Wilkinson county, in the latter part of the year 1814, and that the appellee shortly afterwards intermarried with her; thus acquiring the right of administrator of the estate, and to the possession of the intestate’s personal effects; the whole of which went into his possession. No account was rendered, or settlement made with the court having cognisance of the matter by the administratrix, anterior to her marriage with Gayden, or subsequently by Gayden and wife, or either of them.

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Wren v. Gayden, 2 Miss. 365 (Mich. 1836).

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