Krawietz v. Kneiski
Krawietz v. Kneiski
Opinion of the Court
While the estate of J. N. Kra-wietz, deceased was in process of administration in the probate court of Karnes county, E. J. and L. L. Krawietz each filed claims against the estate with the administrator, who approved and ordered them paid. Subsequently the claimants filed a joint motion for leave to withdraw these claims, alleging that, at the time the claims were filed, approved, and ordered paid, they “were each laboring .under a misapprehension of fact and of law as to their just and lawful rights as against said estate, and that said accounts do not represent the true amount that said estate is due them,” and prayed that they be permitted to withdraw the accounts “that they may in' due time and manner present their just claims as against said estate.”
Frank Kneiski and others, admitted to be heirs at law and interested in the estate, filed a contest of the application to withdraw the claims, upon the grounds that the claims had been regularly authenticated, filed, heard, allowed, ordered paid, transferred to .others, and paid, and cannot now be set aside in a collateral attack, and that the probate court was without power to allow their withdrawal.
The proponents of the motion challenged the right of Kneiski and his associates to contest the same, insisted that the record did not show a legal allowance and adjudication of the claims, or final judgment thereon, and denied that they had transferred the claims, or that the latter had been paid. The county court denied the application to withdraw the claims. The Krawietzes appealed to the district court, in which judgment was again rendered against them.
*806 Article 3218. “All decisions, orders, decrees, and judgments of the county court in probate matters shall be rendered in open court, and at a regular term of such court for civil and probate business, unless in cases where it is otherwise specially provided.”
Article 3219. “All such decisions, orders, decrees and j'udgments shall be entered on the records of the court, during the term at which the same are rendered; and any such decision, order, decree or judgment shall be a nullity unless entered of record.”
An order of a probate court allowing a claim regularly presented is a final judgment. It is expressly made so by statute (article 3452), as well as the decisions. Williams v. Robinson, 63 Tex. 576; Bloom v. Oliver, 56 Tex. Civ. App. 391, 120 S. W. 1101. It is true, as contended by appellants, that it is provided in article 3219 that all orders, etc., of the probate court “shall be entered on the records of the court,” and that, unless so entered, such orders, etc., “shall be a nullity.” But it is expressly provided in article 3211 that the judge’s probate docket is a “record book,” and an entry in that docket of the order allowing a claim is such an entry of record as contemplated in the provisions of article 3219 nullifying an order not entered of record. West v. Keeton, 17 Tex. Civ. App. 139, 42 S. W. 1084; De Cordova v. Rogers, 97 Tex. 60, 75 S. W. 16. Appellants quote from the decisions in Threatt v. Johnson, 156 S. W. 1137, and Drew v. Jarvis, 110 Tex. 136, 216 S. W. 618, to support their contention that, unless the order in question is shown to have been entered in the minutes rather than in the judge’s probate docket, it is a nullity. Those decisions, however, relate to entries in guardianship matters under articles 4050, 4083, and 4297, which expressly provide that the orders therein mentioned shall be entered, not “of record,” but “in the minutes” of the court, and that unless entered “in the minutes” they shall be a nullity. Those decisions have no application here.
The judgment is affirmed.
<&r?For other cases see same topic and KEY-NUMBER in all Key-Numbered Digests and Indexes
Reference
- Full Case Name
- KRAWIETZ Et Al. v. KNEISKI Et Al.
- Cited By
- 8 cases
- Status
- Published