Moore v. Moore

Belcher, C. C. — This is an appeal by Helen M. Moore from an order refusing to appoint her administratrix of the estate of her deceased husband. The facts as shown by the record are as follows:—

William H. Moore died intestate in the month of October, 1871, leaving a widow and five minor children, four of whom were the issue of a former marriage. He resided at the time of his death in the county of Santa Cruz, and left estate, real and personal, therein.

[282]In March, 1872, Thomas W. Moore, a brother of deceased, was appointed, at the request of the widow, administrator of the estate. He at once qualified and entered upon the discharge of his duties as administrator, and continued to act as such until the twenty-eighth day of April, 1881, when, by order of one of the judges of the Superior Court of the city and county of San Francisco, he was sent to the Napa State Asylum for the Insane as an insane person. He remained in the asylum until the twenty-eighth day of December following, when he left it with the consent of the resident physician, cured.

On the 20th of April, 1882, he received from the resident physician a certificate of discharge from the asylum, and on the 25th of July, 1882, in a proceeding commenced in the Superior Court of the city and county of San Francisco, under the provisions of section 1766 of the Code of Civil Procedure, he was by the court found and adjudged to be of sound mind and capable of taking care of himself and his property.

No other administrator being appointed, after he left the asylum he continued to act as administrator of the estate, and on the 16th of September, 1882, he filed his account of his administration from its commencement. To this account, Willie Moore, minor son of the petitioner here, filed objections on the eleventh day of October, 1882.

The issues growing out of the account and objections were subsequently tried and submitted to the court, but on the twentieth day of April, 1883, when this case was tried, had not been decided.

On the sixteenth day of March, 1883, Helen M. Moore, the widow of deceased, presented her petition to the court below, setting forth, among other things, that Thomas W. Moore was committed to an insane asylum, and that since that time no order had been made appointing any person as the administrator of the. .estate of William H. Moore, deceased; that the estate was still