Megary v. Shipley

Alvey, C. J., delivered the opinion of the Court. It appears from the record in this case, that Charles E. Wilcox, an attorney, by petition, with the indorsement and approval thereon of the appellant, as executor ³⁴ of Allen Shipley, deceased, on the 24th of February, 1885, presented to the Orphans’ Court a claim against the estate of the testator, of $350 for alleged professional services rendered the executor, the present appellant; and that, on the same day, the Court, by its order, authorized and directed the executor to pay such claim out of funds in his hands, according to the prayer of the petition. Subsequently, in the statement of his first account, the executor claimed, and was allowed, credit for the amount of the claim of Wilcox, as money paid under the previous order of the Court. Some considerable time thereafter, the appellees in this case, as legatees, by their petition filed in the Orphans’ Court, sought to make the executor charge himself with certain articles of property alleged to have been omitted by him, and by their petition they excepted to the allowance of the claim of Wilcox for $350 as being unjust and unfounded in fact, as a claim against the estate, and prayed that it should be disallowed.

This seems to have given rise to a contest in the Orphans’ Court; and thereupon that Court, after reciting that the matter of the petition and exception of the appellees had been fully heard and considered, and stating that it was of opinion that the previous order of the 24th of February, 1885, passed upon the ex parte petition of Charles E. Wilcox, allowing him the sum of $350 for professional services, out of the estate of said Allen Shipley, was improvidently granted, and the said charge of $350 was far in excess of the amount to which the said Wilcox was entitled, by its order of the 18th of June, 1889, declared that its previous order of February 24th, 1885, should be rescinded, and that the executor should take credit in his account for $200 only, instead of the $350, for the claim made by Wilcox, with the approval of the appellant. From this latter order the present appellant entered an appeal to this Court, on the 16th of September, 1889, but which appeal was with ³⁵ drawn on the 24th of September, 1889, because, as we may