Baker v. Administrators of Lawrence
Baker v. Administrators of Lawrence
Opinion of the Court
The plaintiff in error brought his action in the Court of Common Pleas of Guernsey county, to recover certain sums of money which he claimed to be due him from the estate of defendants’ intestate, on divers partnership transactions between himself and said intestate, some of which were wholly unsettled at the time of the death of the latter.
The defendants answered, controverting the plaintiff’s claim, and the case was referred to a master, who made a report finding a large balance due to the plaintiff’, and accompanied his report with the evidence on which his findings were based. To this report numerous exceptions were filed by defendants. ■
After trial and judgment in the Common Pleas, the cause was taken by appeal to the District Court, where it was heard upon the same report of the master, the excep
The master in his report refused to allow certain chargess of large sums of money against the plaintiff' found in the account books of the intestate, and defendants, among other things, excepted to. the action of the master in refusing to allow the sums so charged as credits or offsets in favor of the estate. The main portions of such exceptions were (numbered 2, 11, and 30. The District Court, upon the trial of the case, found that if the credits to said estate rejected by the master, and specified in said exceptions 2,11 and 30 of defendants, should be allowed to said estate, the balance due to plaintiff' from the estate at the time of the trial would be $1,068.44, and that, independent of the evidence touching these credits, upon consideration of all the other evidence in the case and the said report, the amount due the plaintiff from the estate of Lawrence could not, and did not, exceed the said sum of $1,068.44, and thereupon sustained said exceptions 2, 11, and 30, and gave credit to the Lawrence estate for the amount involved in those ex- . ceptions, and rendered judgment in favor of the plaintiff' for the said sum of $1,068.44 only. This finding and judgment largely reduced the sum found due to the plaintiff' by the master’s report.
The plaintiff claims that in the light of the evidence bearing upon the questions raised by said exceptions 2, 11, and 30, the District Court erred in sustaining them, and asks that its judgment shall for that reason be reversed.
The District Court did not in terms pass upon more than three of the exceptions taken by the defendant to the master’s report; but as these only were sustained, the remainder were virtually overruled. We do not think it necessary .closely to scrutinize the evidence bearing specially upon the three exceptions which it is claimed were improperly sustained. It may be that a rigid scrutiny of all the evi
It is too voluminous to discuss in detail, but we have examined it with due care. An important part of it consists of statements and admissions made by the plaintiff himself during the life of the intestate, and since his decease, in regard to the state of their partnership accounts. These admissions and statements are corroborated by evidence showing the amount of profits made in the partnership business, the pecuniary circumstances of the pai’tners, and other significant facts incon
Reference
- Full Case Name
- William Baker v. Administrators of Albert G. Lawrence
- Status
- Published