Farver v. Pickett

Urner, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. The will of Sarah J. Pickett, late of Carroll County, contained the following provision: “All my just debts and funeral expenses with a small monument to be erected at my grave, shall be first duly paid.” After bequests of personal effects to a niece and a sister, the will directed that all the residue of the estate should be sold, and then bequeathed one-third of the proceeds to- Marcus I)1. L. Pickett, the husband of the testatrix, and the remaining two-thirds in equal shares to her husband, a sister, and four brothers. In an administration account filed by the surviving husband, as administrator c. b. a., credit was taken, for payments of the funeral expenses of the testatrix, amounting* to- $291, a grocer’s bill of $9.85 for provisions furnished on her order, doctors’ bills of $10, and $352.50 for services to 'her rendered in her last illness, from June to November, 1930, and a claim of $220 for money loaned the husband to- pay the nurse who attended his wife during that period.

Objections to the allowance of these items were filed by the brothers and sister named as residuary legatees. The orphans’ court overruled the objections, one of its member's dissenting in part, and from the order to that effect and ratifying the account, an appeal to this court has been taken by the exceptants. ¹² The question as to the item of funeral expenses will be first determined. Apart from the direction in the will on that subject, the husband’s primary responsibility for such an expense would debar him from charging it against his deceased wife^s estate. Willis v. Jones, 57 Md. 362 ; Stonesifer v. Shriver, 100 Md. 24 , 59 A. 139 ; Bliss v. Bliss, 133 Md. 61 , 104 A. 467 ; McFerren v. Goldsmith, 137 Md. 573 , 113 A. 107 ; Barnes v. Starr, 144 Md. 218 , 124 A. 922 .

But it was legally permissible for the wife to impose that obligation upon her estate, and thus relieve her husband of it, by a suitable provision in her will. When a testamentary purpose to that end has been definitely expressed, it should be given its due effect. 30 C. J. 608, 923, 924; Bagby, Maryland Law of Excrs. & Admrs. (2nd Ed.), p. 173; Pafford v. Hinson, 34 Ga. App. 73 , 128 S. E. 207 .

The propriety of charging the other disputed items against the estate of the testatrix depends upon an inquiry as to whether they represent debts for which she was independently liable. The provision in the will for the payment' of her just debts has no influence in the solution of that problem, because even if it were absent from the will her estate would be chargeable with debts which she had