Forry's Estate
Forry's Estate
Opinion of the Court
Opinion by
We cannot sustain this decree; it is clearly void for uncertainty. It directs the administrators of the estate, the respondents, to pay the holders of the decedent’s promissory notes specified in the depositions. Who “the holders of the decedent’s promissory notes” are does not appear with any certainty either in the petition, the depositions, or the decree. The petition by which the present proceeding was instituted recites that the fund was awarded “to pay the indebtedness of the decedent, on the notes of William H. Overbaugh, et al., upon which the decedent was joint maker,” and prays that the respondents be compelled to pay the money “to your petitioner or to the parties holding the notes.” The testimony of Overbaugh and Rhodes was taken by deposition. Overbaugh was the only witness who testi
If the decree had not been appealed from by the administrator, how would the learned court below have enforced it? Whom would the administrators have been commanded to pay, and in what proportion among the claimants would they have been ordered to distribute the fund? The decree should be sufficiently definite so that the mandate requiring its performance would direct the administrators to pay a sum certain to each of the ascertained creditors. As the present decree stands, a sufficient answer by the administrators to any attempt to enforce it would be that the parties entitled thereto and the sums to which they are respectively entitled had not been legally adjudicated.
The appellants are not in a position to deny that this money was awarded to them and that they now hold it to satisfy the indebtedness of their decedent on the
We think the learned court below should have required the petitioner to show definitely the parties to whom the money is payable and the amount payable to each. When this is done a decree can be entered requiring its payment by the administrators.
The decree is reversed with a procedendo.
Reference
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- Practice, O. G. — Decree—Uncertainty. An Orphans’ Court, in the adjudication of an estate, made the following decree: “The rule granted in this case is made absolute, and it is directed that the administrators of the estate of Jesse Forry, deceased, pay to the holders of the decedent’s promissory notes specified in the depositions filed in this case on or before the first Monday of August, 1912, their respective ratable proportions of the money awarded to said administrators for that purpose, by the auditor distributing said decedent’s estate, to wit: the sum of $1,815.92, with interest from the 2nd day of December, 1907.” Held, the decree does not sufficiently indicate to what persons the notes are to be paid, and as their identity was not fixed by the depositions the decree is void for uncertainty.