Wright v. McNatt
Wright v. McNatt
Opinion of the Court
This is an “administration case,” within the meaning of rule 59, and, as such, it has, on motion, received precedence on the docket.
The County Court of Cooke county, at its November Term, 1877, on the application of appellee, and after due notice, removed G.. 0. Wright from the administration of the estate of J. G. Martin, deceased, for failing to sell 300 acres of laud, as ordered by the court. From this order of removal the administrator appealed to the District Court, and that court having affirmed the judgment of the County Court, the case has been regularly appealed to this court. There is no assignment of errors in the record; and unless there is found apparent in the record some ground of error so fundamental that the court will act upon it without añ assignment of errors, this court will consider all other issues as waived. On looking into the record, we see no good reason for holding that the court committed such fundamental error in removing the administrator. The application for the removal, and the order
On July 16,1877, the County Court granted the application of the minors and the administrator to set aside 200 acres out of the 300-acre tract as a homestead, and directed the designated 200 acres to be stricken from the inventory. In August, 1877, McBatt applied for a renewal of his order of sale, stating that the administrator appealed from the former order, so that the day fixed passed without sale, but that his appeal was dismissed. Wright, the administrator, resisted this order, on the ground that 200 acres of the land was the homestead, and had been set aside as such, and dropped from the inventory. The County Court, however, renewed and reformed the order of sale, fixing the time of sale, and directing the sale .of the land, or so much as might be necessary to
The question is not as to the correctness of the former orders of the County Court, but as to this order of removal. It may be that if the administrator had properly prosecuted his appeal from the order of sale, that it would have been held invalid, in so far as it ordered the sale of land which had been set aside to the children as a homestead, and ordered to be dropped from the inventory. And certainly we do not intend to affirm the validity of that order of sale as to the homestead, and as against the children of Martin. The claim that these children were parties to the order, is not supported by the record. Minors can only litigate by their guardians, general or special; or even if they can still appear by a next friend, they certainly cannot litigate in their own names, appearing by attorney. Whether the County Court was a tribunal with jurisdiction to determine the question as to whether the mortgage bound the homestead in the hands of Martin’s children, it is not necessary to decide. However that may be, we are of opinion that the administrator was not justified in treating the order of sale as a nullity. If dissatisfied therewith, he should have prosecuted his appeal and tested its validity. It was not for him to disobey the order of the court because the order may have gone too far. As
We intimate no opinion as to whether McNatt stated a case which entitled Mm to have the homestead subjected to his mortgage, and, indeed, have not deemed it necessary to state the facts on which that claim was based. That question, cannot be properly determined in a case to which the children claiming the homestead aré not parties.
We do not discover from the record that the court committed manifest and fundamental error- in" removing the administrator, and the judgment is accordingly affirmed.
Affirmed.
Case-law data current through December 31, 2025. Source: CourtListener bulk data.