Hodgson's Estate
Hodgson's Estate
Opinion of the Court
The reasons given by the auditor and court below for refus-ing to surcharge the accountant with the royalties which he never received are amply sufficient to sustain the correctness of their conclusion. The lessee was not absolutely bound to take out one million tons in each year, but could make up a deficiency in any one year during the following year, and if, at the end of ten years there was a deficiency, the coal not mined was forfeited to the owners of the fee. In 1887 the land was sold by order of the orphans’ court, with all the unmined coal upon it, and the proceeds were duly distributed to the parties entitled to them, including these appellants. Of course the sale must be assumed to include the coal not mined under the lease for which the present attempt to surcharge the accountant is made. This effort to obtain double payment for the same coal by surcharging an innocent trustee who never received any part of it.cannot possibly be sanctioned.
The decree of the court below is affirmed at the cost of appellant.
Reference
- Full Case Name
- Hodgson's Estate. Black's Appeal
- Cited By
- 2 cases
- Status
- Published
- Syllabus
- Mining — Coal lease — Royalty—Trustee—Decedents' estates. A coal lease provided that the lessees should mine at least ten million bushels of coal, during the continuance of the lease, and mine, remove and pay for one million bushels of coal for each and every year, until the ten million bushels were mined. It was further provided that should the lessees fail to mine the whole amount of one million bushels in any one year the deficiency must be made up in the following year, except in the last year of the term, when the portion remaining unmined was forfeited to the lessor. The lessor died before the expiration of the lease. Two years after the death of the lessor, and in the fifth year after the execution of the lease, the property was sold by order of court for payment of the lessor’s debts. The administrator, under advice of counsel, failed to collect royalty on the whole of two million bushels the last two years, as that much was not mined. Held, that the administrator could not be surcharged for failing to collect the royalties on the coal which ought to have been mined by the lessee, but was not, and remained unmined at the date of the sale. Decedents' estates — Costs. Where an unsuccessful attempt is made by the distributees of an estate to surcharge an administrator with royalties which it was alleged should have been collected by him, the costs are properly payable out of the estate.