State ex rel. Manning v. Baker

Le Grand, C. J., delivered the opinion of this court. We are of opinion that the court below erred in refusing to allow the evidence offered by the plaintiff to be given to the jury. There can be no doubt, and it was not questioned in the argument, that the accounts of a guardian settled in the orphans court are but prima facie evidence of their correctness. The testimony proposed to sustain the case of the plaintiff had for its object the falsification of the accounts settled by the guardian, by showing that ho was appointed such expressly on the ground that he was not to receive any allowance for tuition, board, &c., &c.

We think such a contract binding. Such an appointment of guardian operates as a contract between the person applying for the trust and the orphans court acting for the minor, which the latter may claim the benefit of in the manner sought here; the orphans court, in such a case stands in loco parentis to the infant. It is not, as was supposed by counsel, like the case of the allowance of commissions to an executor. In the case of McKim & Marriott, vs. Duncan, et al., 4 Gill, 72, the Court of Appeals field, it was not competent to a testator to deprive his executor of his commissions by anything he might put in his