Sloan v. Safe Deposit & Trust Co.

Irving, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. The ajipellants in this case purchased certain real estate from the appellee as trustee or receiver under a decree of the Circuit Court of Baltimore City, and have excepted to the sale for several reasons, Which are supposed to affect the jurisdiction of the Court to order the sale, and therefore render their title insecure. A brief history of the case, culminating in this sale, is necessary to an intelligent apprehension of the question involved. In 1848, Andrew Popplein died leaving a will, by which he gave his whole estate to his brother Nicholas Popplein, if he should survive him, and if not to his nephew, George Popplein, in certain trusts.

Nicholas Popplein died before the testator, and the alternative devise took effect. That devise was as follows: “I give, devise and bequeath all my estate to my nephew, George Popplein, his heirs, executors and administrators, in trust and confidence, nevertheless, and to, for and upon the uses and to the ends, intents and purposes, and under and subject to the powers and limitations following, and none other, that is to say, in trust that he or they shall and will as soon as practicable, after my decease, convert the same into ready money, and invest the amount in stocks, or place the same out at interest upon good security, as may be deemed by him or them most advisable and beneficial, and so on, from time to time, as occasion may require, to change the investment or sell the stocks ²⁴¹ or any part thereof, and the proceeds thereof receive and reinvest as aforesaid.” The "estate is then divided by the will and codicil into certain specified proportions, the description of which is not necessary to the proper understanding of the question herein involved. The codicil made George Popplein, Nicholas Huppman and Nicholas Popplein, and the survivors or survivor of them, executors and trustees of his will. On the thirteenth of August, 1862, Ferdinand Bod-man and Catharine, his wife, (the latter being one of the legatees and distributees under the will of her uncle, Andrew Popplein,) filed a bill in the Circuit Court of Baltimore City, setting out the will, and charging that the executors appointed had accepted the trust committed to them by the testator, who died in 1848, but had passed but one account, and were derelict in their trust; and asking for an account, and that other trustees should be appointed, if the Court thought it necessary and proper from the development's of the case.

It averred the death of George Popplein, unmarried, and without issue, and the devolution of his interest under . the will upon his brothers and sisters, and that the trusts had survived to the surviving executors. It also averred . the death of some of the other legatees, and the granting of letters on their estates, and all the parties were brought in by process. In April, 1868, “a bill of revivor and supplement” was. filed by the complainants, through their counsel, Thomas S. Alexander, averring that they had theretofore filed their bill for an account, and the execution of the trusts under the will of Andrew Pojjplein, and that before answer filed, Nicholas Huppman, one of the executors, had died, leaving no children, but leaving a wife and will, by which he gave her all his property, and leaving her his executor, and that she was herself a legatee under the Popplein will, and a party to the suit, ²⁴² but that the same ought to be revived against her as executrix of her husband’s will. It also averred the death of Valentine Huppman and the devolution of his interest as legatee on his only child, Anna Huppman, and the full administration of Valentine’s estate by Nicholas Huppman before his death. .This petition prayed for such relief as the case required, and brought in by prayer for process all the new parties made necessary by deaths.

Upon this petition, on the 20th of May, 1863, by the consent of Nicholas Popplein, the only surviving executor, Nicholas A. Huppman was appointed receiver, and all the estate was directed to be surrendered to him. Subsequently this receiver died, and on proper petition the Court appointed the appellee receiver, with all the powers vested in the former and deceased receiver. Meanwhile sundry deaths had occurred amongst the claimants under the will of Andrew Popplein, which had been suggested hy proper petition, and the representatives of such deceased parties were made parties. In the interim also, viz., in July, lSH, on interlocutory petitions in the cause, the Court had authorized the sale of a portion of the real estate to Richard J. Capron, for the sum of one hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars; that is to say, twenty-five thousand dollars cash, and the residue to be reserved as a redeemable ground rent, at six per centum per annum; and by its decree had appointed the receivers, Nicholas A. Popplein and Nicholas Huppman, trustees, to make the sale.

The sale was made, reported, and finally ratified, but it seems was never actually perfected by the payment of the agreed cash payment and the execution of the necessary instruments for the creation of the lease and reserving the agreed ground rent. Capron never went into possession, as the sale was not finally consummated, and the receiver continued in possession, managing the property. ²⁴³ On the 25th' of Eebruary, 1889, the appellant, Sloan, with his wife who is a distributee of the estate, with sundry others of the parties entitled to shares of the estate, filed an interlocutory petition setting forth that for many years the trust had been administered under the direction of the Court, and that the life tenants of the estate had all died, and that the time had arrived for a division under the will. It averred that there was real estate unsold and owned at that time hv the parties in interest as tenants in common, and asked that the same and all the trust property be sold, and that the receiver should file a statement in detail of all the trust estate in his hands and that there might he an adjustment of all the rights of the parties, and for such relief as the case required. All the parties in interest who were not made interlocutory petitioners were made defendants, answers were filed, testimony was taken and the case proceeded to decree.

When the case came before the Court for decree, it seems to have been discovered that under the decree of July, 1877, the real estate had been sold to Richard J. Capron as hereinbefore recited, who had never complied with the terras of sale, although the sale had not only been authorized by the Court, but had been reported to and ratified by the Court. Thereupon Capron came in, and, by written agreement filed in the cause, agreed that the sale might he rescinded, and the Court passed a decree rescinding the sale and the decree under which it was made, and decreed the sale of the property by the receiver as trustee. The trustee sold and reported his sale, and it is to that sale and report that the appellants except. In substance the exceptions are: 1st.

That valid title cannot be made because James Briscoe, Jr., and Elizabeth R. Briscoe are entitled to 19-108 parts of the estate after the death of their father, and Nicholas Huppman, infant, is entitled to from 7 to 9-108 parts after ²⁴⁴ the death of his mother. 2nd. Because appellants cannot get a title because the sale to Capron had never been validly set aside so as to bind the infants. 3rd. Because the equitable title to the land was in Oapron; that a sale was not necessary for partition, and it was not to the ' advantage of the infants to have the land sold. 4th. Because the infants were not made parties defendant by guardians to protect them.

And 5th. Because the parties ngmed as next friends of the infants in the petition of 23rd of February, 1889, did not sign a written authority to the solicitor for the purpose, nor was any such authority filed with the proceeding as required by section 125 of Art. 16 of the Code of Public General Laws. All the§e objections go to the jurisdiction of the Court to do what has been done effectively as against the infants interested. It.is conceded that irregularities in the ex- ' ercise of the jurisdiction, if the jurisdiction was really acquired, would not avail to sustain the appellants’ contention; but it is contended that the jurisdiction to do what was done was not perfectly acquired.

It is an established principle that a purchaser, under a judgment or decree of a Court of competent jurisdiction, may presume that the Court has taken all the necessary steps to investigate the rights of the parties, and that the decree under which a sale is made, was passed after due and proper investigation. Newbold vs. Schlens and Wilkens, 66 Md., 588 -90; Gregory, et al. vs. Lenning, et al., 54 Md., 56 . There are without doubt some irregularities in this case, but we do not think they affect the validity of the title the appellants will acquire under the sale to them. All the proceedings in the case must now be considered in the light of the fact that Andrew Popplein by his will directed the immediate conversion of all his estate into money, and its investment in stocks or money loans; and that thereby the land of the testator, was by the ²⁴⁵ terms of the will equitably converted into money, and only required actual sale by the trustee named in the will, or his successor in the trust, duly appointed by a Court of equity, to complete the transmutation.

Looking at it in this view, it becomes wholly immaterial what provision of the Code the framer of the interlocutory petition of February 25th, 1889, may have had in his mind when he filed that petition; for in point of