Lambrecht v. State

Bartol, O. J., delivered the opinion of the Court. This suit was brought by the appellee upon the testamentary bond of Sydney C. Long, executor of the will of Sarah J. Wilson deceased, and was tried before the Baltimore City Court, without the intervention of a jury. The following facts were admitted: Sarah J. Wilson died in 1875, leaving a will bequeathing $500 to Helen M. Wilson, and appointing Sydney C. Long her executor, who took out letters and the defendant, Caroline Lambrecht, was one of the sureties on his testamentary bond. Helen M. Wilson, the legatee, died without having received the bequest, and JST.

Rufus (3-ill is her administrator duly qualified. The estate of the testatrix consisted of sundry articles of household furniture valued at $191, and a debt due her from Long her executor amounting to $2500. The executor “gave in” the claim against himself as a debt due the testatrix as required by the Oode, Art. 93, sec. 224. It was admitted that “ if, in this case, the debt owing by the executor was in law, cash assets in his hands, there were sufficient assets to pay said bequests, and that the plaintiff was entitled to recover.” The defendant offered evidence, subject to exception, tending to prove that the executor was insolvent at the time he took out letters, and had been so ever since, and had had no funds to pay his debt to the estate, orto pay the legacy; and offered four prayers claiming exemption from liability of the sureties upon the testamentary bond, by reason of the insolvency of the executor.

The Court excluded the evidence, and rejected the defendant’s prayers, and to this ruling the defendant excepted. The decision of the case depends upon the construction of sec. 224, Art. 93 of the Code. (Revised Code, Art. 50, sec. 139.) This section provides that: “The bare naming an executor in a will shall not operate to extinguish any ²⁴⁸ just claim which the deceased had against him; but it shall be the duty of every such executor accepting the trust, to give in such claim in the list of debts; and on his failure to give in such claim” (proceedings are authorized to he taken by parties interested, and also for establishing the claim in case it is contested,) “and if the executor shall give in such claim, or any part thereof he established as aforesaid, he shall account for the sum due, in the same manner as if it were so much money in his hands, and on failure his bond may be put in suit.” The words of the Code just cited appear to he quite plain and free from ambiguity. The same statutory provision is found in the Act of 1798, ch. 101, sub-ch. 8, sec. 20.

It has been in force ever since that statute was enacted, and this is the first time, so far as we are aware, that its construction has been called in question in the Court of Appeals. By the common law, as long since settled in England, “if a creditor appointed his debtor his executor, the debt was considered extinguished at law, for the reason that the executor could not sue himself. ****** As a consequence of this it was held that the debt was paid, and was assets in the hands of the executor who owed the money, for which he was as much answerable to the creditors of the testator as if he had actually received that amount in cash from any other person indebted to the estate. At a later period, it became an established rule in equity that an executor should be accountable for the amount of his debt as assets, not only for the payment of debts, but also for the benefit of residuary legatees and next of kin. Still recognizing the principle that the executor has paid to himself the debt due by him to the testator.” Beall vs. Hilliary, 1 Md., 189 .

It was the manifest intention of the Act of 1798, to charge the executor absolutely with the debt which he might owe the testator as assets in his hands, and in order to remove all danger of misconstruction, it was provided