Lutz v. Mahan

Bryan, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. The principal question in this case is whether an order is correct which the Orphans’ Court of Baltimore City passed for the revocation of certain letters of administration. There were three petitions in the cause; but before we consider their merits we will state some of the prominent facts as they appear in the transcript of the record. Valentine Lutz died intestate on the third day of January, eighteen hundred and ninety-four; on the fifth day of the same month he was buried, and on the sixth letters of administration on his estate were granted to his son, George W. Lutz, and John B. McGraw, who was associated in the administration at the request of the son.

The letters were granted by the Register of Wills in the recess of the Orphans’ Court. During the preliminary examination before the grant of letters, the Deputy Register asked if George was the only son of the deceased, and Mr. McGraw answered that he was. In point of fact there was another son, who was the elder brother; there were also two sisters, but no widow. It is fair to say that Mr. McGraw had no knowledge of the,existence of another son.

No notice of the application for letters was given to the other son, or to either of the sisters. ²³⁵ On the twelfth of January John Lutz, the elder son, filed in the Orphans’ Court a renunciation of his right to the administration. There was undue haste in obtaining the letters of administration. No one of the family of the deceased had any knowledge of the application for them, except the one’ who was appointed administrator. Under the law he had no superior .right to his elder brother, and could not have obtained the administration if the facts had been truly stated to the Register of Wills.

If any of the other members of the family had been present (as they had a right to be) this misstatement would have been corrected, and the letters would not have been issued. George certainly knew that he was not the only son of his father; but yet he permits the statement to be made in his presence without contradiction. We are not disposed to be severe in our criticism of his conduct; because the evidence shows that he is an ignorant man, totally unacquainted with legal proceedings, and most probably he very imperfectly understood the nature of the business in which he was engaged. His. attention, may not have been directed to the precise character of the question asked.

But after every allowance is made in regard to this matter, the question as to the validity of the letters remains unchanged. They were obtained by means, of an untrue statement about an essential fact. ■ Whether the deception was the result of carelessness or mistake, or was intentionally practised, the result is the same. The grant of letters stands condemned as improperly made. The deception operated as a fraud on the Register of Wills, and caused him to render an erroneous judgment.

That judgment ought surely to be set aside. It is due to the integrity of legal proceedings that a determination grounded on a