Wilkinson v. Robertson

McSherry, C. J., delivered the opinion of the Court. It appears by the record now before us that Amanda C. Ford, the wife of J. Donaldson Ford, died in April, 1892, without issue, owing no debts and leaving her husband surviving her. She was possessed at the time of her decease of personal chattels valued at something over six hundred dollars, two or three hundred dollars on deposit in bank and a one-half undivided interest in a leasehold house and lot in Baltimore, worth about seven hundred dollars. In the latter part of June of the same year J. Donaldson Ford, the surviving husband, conveyed by deed to Jennie L. Billups, the sister of his deceased wife, all the interest which he, as surviving husband, had acquired under the laws of Maryland, in this leasehold property owned by his wife.

On November the seventeenth, 1896, the surviving husband filed in the Orphans’ Court of Baltimore City a renunciation of his right to administer on his wife’s estate, and at the same time requested that letters be granted to Mr. Alexander H. Robertson, the appellee. Accordingly on the same day letters of administration were granted to Mr. Robertson, and forthwith an order was passed directing the administrator to give the usual notice to creditors. Thirteen days afterwards the administrator filed a petition stating that the only estate of the decedent, which had cotne to his hands, was this undivided one-half interest in the leasehold house and lot that had been conveyed by the surviving husband to his sister-in-law more than four years previously, and praying that an order might be passed authorizing the sale of the leasehold estate for the purpose of raising funds with which “ to pay the expenses and debts of the administration. ” The same day the order prayed for was passed. Jennie L. Billups having ⁴⁴⁹ married Edwin Wilkinson, went into the Orphans’ Court by-petition on December the sixteenth, 1896, and asked that the order appointing Mr. Robertson administrator, and the order directing a sale of the property that had been previously conveyed to her, might each be rescinded; and on the same day that petition was dismissed.

From the order of dismissal the pending appeal was taken. The single question is, was administration on the deceased wife’s estate necessary under the circumstances ? If it was not, then the order granting it was erroneous ; and if that order was erroneous, the subsequent one founded on it and authorizing a sale to be made by Mr. Robertson is necessarily erroneous also. As the law stood prior to the adoption of the Act of 1892, ch. 571, when a married woman died intestate and without children, her personal property devolved upon her surviving husband, and no administration was necessary to perfect his title, though, if he desired to protect himself from liability for her debts, in the event that she owed any, he could apply for and obtain letters of administration.

This right to administer depended altogether on the fact that she owed debts. If she owed no debts there was no necessity for administration, and none could be granted. In re Lee’s estate, 76 Md. 108 . This decision gave a construction to sec. 32, Art. 93 of the Code.

That section, as it stood before the Act of 1892, was passed, provided that: “ If the intestate be a married woman and shall leave no child or children or descendants, all her personal property, including therein all choses in action, shall devolve upon her husband absolutely; and it shall not in such case be necessary for him to administer upon her estate in order to pass title to