DeGrange v. DeGrange

Schmucker, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. Charles A. DeGrange, late of Frederick County, died intestate on August 6th, 1899, leaving a personal estate, consisting of $1,364.13 in cash, and seized of an undivided half-interest in a parcel of real estate. Letters of administration were granted on his personal estate to his brother, Garrett S. DeGrange, the appellant, who was also the owner of the other one-half interest in the parcel of real estate. On September 25th, 1900, the appellant as administrator stated an ex parte administration account, in the Orphans’ Court of Frederick County.

By this account the money of which the estate consisted was applied first to the payment of the costs of administration and the balance, $1,072.50, was allowed pro rata to the intestate’s creditors to whom it yielded a dividend of 74)^ per cent of their claims leaving nothing for distribution to the next of kin. Among the claims on which this dividend was allowed, were three held by the administrator himself. Two of these were upon promissory notes for $500 each, drawn by the intestate to the order of the appellant dated respectively, May 11th, 1898, and July 5th, 1898, and payable six months after date. The other claim was an open account amounting to $111.94 for one-half of certain expenditures made by the appellant upon the parcel of real estate of which he and the intestate had been tenants in common.

After the filing of this account the appellees, who are two of the next of kin of the intestate, filed a petition in the Or ⁶¹¹ phans’ Court asking to have the account reopened and a new one stated disallowing the three claims set up against the estate by the appellant, the administrator, in his own favor. The grounds set forth in the petition were that the intestate never was indebted in his lifetime to the appellant, that the two promissory notes for $500 each were never given by the intestate to the appellant as his own property or with the intent to create an obligation to him on the part of the intestate, and that the intestate at the respective dates of the two notes did not possess sufficient mental capacity to intelligently dispose of his property and that if the notes had been in fact procured by the appellant from the intestate in his lifetime they were procured by undue influence practiced by the appellant on the intestate when he was too feeble to resist it. The appellant answered this petition admitting that the intestate never was indebted to him in his lifetime upon the two notes, but insisting that they had been voluntarily delivered to him as and for his own property by the intestate on their respective dates “as a gift” and that the intestate by such delivery under the circumstances (which are not set out in the answer) surrounding the making of the notes “created an obligation on the part of the intestate, that he intended the gift of the amounts mentioned in said notes or single bills should pass to the said Garrett S. DeGrange.” The answer further averred that the open account was just and true and was for labor and material furnished in the lifetime of the intestate with his knowledge and consent. It also denied the allegation of the petition that the intestate had not been in the full possession of all of his mental faculties and of sound and disposing mind when he made the gift of the two notes to the appellant.

A variety of proceedings in the Orphans’ Court, including an order requiring the appellant to produce full proof of his claims against the estate, followed the filing the petition and answer. Much testimony was taken including the production of the two notes, which were ordinary promissory notes not under seal, and the evidence of witnesses as to the mental condition of the intestate when the notes were made and also as ⁶¹² to services rendered to him during his last sickness by the appellant. It appeared from this testimony that all of the $ 111.94, charged in the open account for expenditures made by the appellant on the real estate held in common by him and the intestate, except the sum of $11:$?, was for repairs thereon made after the death of the latter. When the issues made by the petition and answer finally reached a hearing, the Orphans’ Court by the'order from which the present appeal was taken rejected and disallowed entirely the claims of the appellant on the two promissory notes and rejected and disallowed his claim to be reimbursed one-half of his expenditures for repairs on the real estate except as to the $11.57 paid for repairs made during the lifetime of the intestate.

We think that by this order the Orphans’ Court correctly disposed of the issue before it. It is perfectly clear that the appellant had no claim upon the personal estate of his intestate for any part of the repairs made to the real estate after the death of the latter. The sole foundation of that claim was the fact that the repairs enured equally to the benefit of both tenants in common of the real estate, but after the death of the intestate his heirs at law, and not he, were the tenants in common with the appellant. If he has any claim to be reimbursed a portion of the money spent for those repairs it is against the heirs at law and not the per-' sonal estate of his deceased co -tenant and it cannot be asserted in this proceeding.

There is evidence in the record tending to show that the appellant from time to time rendered to the intestate such services as one brother might naturally be expected to perform for another, but the evidence does not connect the giving of the notes with those services or show that the former formed the consideration for the latter. The appellant, in his sworn answer to the petition asking to have his claim against the estate on the two promissory notes disallowed, admits that the intestate was not indebted to him in his lifetime on the notes, and distinctly claims title to them ⁶¹³ as having been voluntarily delivered to him by the intestate