Estate of Mailhebuau

California Supreme Court May 26, 1933 No. Docket No. S.F. 14516.Published

Before: Thompson

AI Brief

AI-generated · verify before citing

Holding. The court held that an executor acts at their own peril when making payments to a general creditor without court order, especially when the estate's solvency is in doubt, and that a claimant with a pending rejected claim is an interested party entitled to contest an account.

Issues

Whether a claimant with a pending rejected claim is a 'person interested in the estate' entitled to file exceptions to an executor's account.
Whether an order settling a prior annual account precludes a creditor from objecting to similar payments made in a subsequent account.
Whether an executor may be ordered to pay funds to a creditor to correct an inequitable distribution of estate assets.

Disposition. affirmed

Quotations verified verbatim against the opinion

“It is patent, therefore, that one whose claim has been rejected and who is prosecuting an action upon it is a person interested in the estate.”

THOMPSON, J.

The appellant is the executrix of the last will and testament of Camille Mailhebuau, deceased, and the respondents are the executors of the last will and testament of Adolph B. Spreckels, deceased. The contest herein revolves around two items in the fifth annual account of the appellant. On October 5, 1925, she approved the claim of the Henry Investment Company against the estate in the sum of $10,000, together with interest thereon at six per cent per annum from February 27, 1924, which claim was founded upon an unsecured promissory note. On the same day the executrix and appellant rejected the claim presented by respondents as executors of the last will and testament of Adolph B. Spreckels. Respondents on December 5, 1925, filed an action based upon the rejected claim, which action resulted in a judgment in favor of respondents on June 1, 1927, in the sum of !$18,850, together with costs amounting to $14. The District Court of Appeal affirmed the judgment on January 29, 1929. A petition for a hearing in this court was denied and the

remittitur

was filed on April 3, 1929. Prior to the filing of the fourth annual account the appellant had paid on account of the Henry Investment Company claim the interest in full to July 1, 1928, and $2,000 of the principal amount. An objection by respondents to an item of interest in the account first mentioned, in the sum of $480 paid to the Henry Investment Company was disallowed by the probate court on December 31, 1929. However, upon the filing of the fifth annual account the appellant reported !$240 interest and $1,000 principal as having been paid on account of the Henry Investment Company’s claim. Again the respondents filed objections and exceptions on the theory that the appellant was giving a preference to that claim. The. court sustained the objec

[204]

tions; refused to approve the payments aggregating $1240; found that she had that sum available for the payment of debts of the estate; and ordered that she pay it to the respondents. This appeal is from the order just recited and while there is some discussion in appellant’s brief concerning a portion of the order requiring her to give bond we shall not discuss that question further than to point out that the notice of appeal specifically excepts that portion of the order.

Estate of Mailhebuau

AI Brief

THOMPSON, J.

More from California Supreme Court

Related research

AI Brief