Wilson v. Kyle's Executors
Wilson v. Kyle's Executors
Opinion of the Court
There was error in the action of the district court in overruling the plaintiffs’ demurrer to defendants’ plea to the jurisdiction of the court in this cause. The action was brought on a partition bond, executed under the authority of Article 1372, Paschal’s Digest, and was a simple obligation, by which the obligors bound themselves to pay the debts due from the estate of Thos. J. Coffee. And the statute provides that “ any creditor shall have the right to sue on such obligation in his own name, and shall be entitled to judgment thereon for the amount of his claim.” The statute further provides that the obligation shall be made payable to the chief justice of the county where the estate is being administered, and shall be filed and recorded in the office of the county court. These provisions of the statute were manifestly for the sole purpose of protecting the interest and securing the convenience of the creditors of the estate about to be distributed. The primary object of the statute was to provide a speedy mode for settling up estates, and giving to heirs and devisees their just proportion of the inheritance, and at the same time to transfer the responsibility of the debts from the estate to the obligors on
It is true that the statute, as a double security for the payment of the debts, gives the creditors the right to hold each distributee responsible for the proportion he or she received from the estate; but there can be no doubt that the creditor may, if he chooses, look to the partition bond alone for his debt, and if he does so, it is wholly immaterial whether the estate, for the partition of which the obligation was given, is settled or not, or where the same has been, or is being settled. The obligation is a personal one, and the obligors may be sued in the county where they, or either of them live.
Wm. J. Kyle, one of the obligors on the bond, died in Fort Bend county, and his estate was being administered there, and under the statute, that was the only proper county to bring suit against his executors. The reason of .the law for requiring suits to be brought in certain counties,- as given by this court in Finch v. Edmonson, 9 Texas, 510, applies with great force in the case at bar. The executor of Wm. J. Kyle, who re- • sides in Fort Bend county, and who is the only one of the defendants who pleads to the jurisdiction of the court, complains that he, and the estate he represents, is not. forced to answer in a distant county, in a suit upon a simple demand for money. It is believed that not only the law, but the reason for the law, is opposed
Reversed and remanded.
Reference
- Full Case Name
- Hugh Wilson v. Kyle's Executors
- Status
- Published
- Syllabus
- 1. Suit for a money demand was brought upon a statutory bond for the partition of an intestate’s estate. One of the sureties on the bond was deceased, and the suit was brought against his executors (and other defendants) in the county where his estate was being administered by them. They pleaded that another suit upon the same demand had been brought by the plaintiff in an adjoining county, where some of the defendants lived, and that it was still pending there; wherefore, they alleged that the court wherein the present suit was brought had no jurisdictiou. Meld, that the plaintiff’s demurrer to this plea should have been sustained. The district court of the county where the suit was brought not only had jurisdiction, but it seems had exclusive jurisdiction as against the executors of the deceased surety. 2. The primary object of Article 1372, Paschal’s Digest, allowing partition of an estate upon execution of a bond as therein required, was to provide a speedy mode of settling estates, and at the same time to transfer the responsibility of the debts from the estate to the obligors on the bond ; and they, by the execution of the bond, become primarily liable for the debts of the estate. 3. In a suit on a partition bond by a creditor of the estate, it is immaterial whether the estate has been settled up or not.