Gillmore v. Dunson
Gillmore v. Dunson
Opinion of the Court
The statute prescribes certain requisites for an affidavit, made to authenticate a claim for money against an estate of a deceased person, and declares, in effect, that if any claim be allowed by an administrator, or approved by the court, without an affidavit containing the necessary requisites, such an allowance or approval shad be of no force or effect. The statute requires that the affidavit shall state that the claim is just, and that all legal offsets, payments and credits have been allowed. The affidavit made to the justness of the claim sued on in this cause fails fully to comply with the statute in this respect. It neither uses the language of the statute, nor its equivalent. And in following the decision in Walters v. Prestige, 30 Texas, 66, we feel bound to decide that the district court had no-jurisdiction of the cause.
The judgment is therefore reversed, and the cause* dismissed.
Reversed abb dismissed.
Reference
- Full Case Name
- J. D. Gillmore, Adm'r v. H. F. Dunson and another
- Cited By
- 4 cases
- Status
- Published
- Syllabus
- 1. An affidavit for the authentication of a claim against a decedent’s estate must contain the requisites prescribed by the statute; and if it fail to do so, the allowance of the claim by the administrator, or its approval by the probate judge, can give it no effect or validity. 2. An affidavit for the authentication of a claim against a decedent’s estate averred that “ all legal payments and credits” had been allowed, but omitted to mention “ offsets” in the same connection. Held, that the affidavit is fatally defective by reason of the omission, and that the district court could acquire no jurisdiction of a suit based on the claim thus defectively authenticated, although the rejection of the claim by the administrator assigned a different reason and took no exception to the affidavit. (Paschal’s Digest, Articles 1309 and 1310.) The case of Walters v. Prestige, 30 Texas, 66, cited and approved.