Pritchard v. King

RICHARDS, J.

This appeal is from a decree of distribution made and entered in the above-named estate. The appeal is taken by one Sadie E. Pritchard, who claims to be a surviving partner of the decedent and who sought to assert her right as such in the course of the proceedings in the probate court for the administration of said estate, and by seeking to have set aside to her therein and upon the distribution thereof the entire property of said estate. The following are the facts of the case as disclosed by the record upon appeal: Fred G. King died on December 11, 1920, and letters of administration upon his estate were thereafter and in due course issued to his surviving widow on January 4, 1921. Notice to creditors was thereafter duly published and a decree establishing due notice to creditors entered on December 7, 1921. On May 2, 1921, the appellant presented and filed in the probate court a document entitled “Notice of sole surviving partner,’’ wherein the appellant proceeded to set forth that she was, between the years 1891 and 1920 and up to the date of the death of said decedent, his equal partner in all his various deals and business enterprises, and that all of his -estate was partnership property and that she was entitled to have the possession of all of said property delivered to her as such partner by the administratrix of said estate, and she thereby demanded such delivery and an accounting as to the business of said partnership, The administratrix apparently took no action with reference to the claim and demand of the appellant as set forth in said document; nor did the appellant, so far as this record discloses, take any further action thereon until the time arrived for the final distribution of

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said estate and until the administratrix, in September, 1924, presented her final account and petitioned for such distribution. Notice of the hearing upon said last-named petition having been duly given, the appellant herein again appeared and filed another document wherein she again asserted and set forth substantially the same facts with regard to her partnership relation to said decedent and her right as such partner to the whole of the property of said estate as to the assets of such partnership, and prayed that the said court "ascertain and declare the rights of your petitioner and all persons to said estate and all their interests therein and to whom distribution thereof should be made and make a distribution thereof accordingly.” The hearing upon the petition for distribution of said estate came on regularly before said court on the fifth day of November, 1924, and on said date and at the time of said hearing the appellant again appeared and filed another document entitled "Protest to the distribution and final account,” wherein she again reasserted and repeated her previous averments with relation to said partnership and to the properties of said estate, and objected to the 'distribution of said estate to the heirs of said decedent as prayed for in the petition for distribution, and added thereto a prayer that the distribution of the estate be held in abeyance until such time as would enable her to establish her contention with relation to the properties of said estate. The probate court apparently disregarded each and all of these several petitions and protests on the part of said appellant and proceeded to make and enter its decree of distribution of said estate to the widow of said decedent and to his son and daughter, who were shown to be his heirs. This appeal is from said decree of distribution.