Brandon v. Brown

Citations

• 106 Ill. 519
• 1883 Ill. LEXIS 201

Syllabus

<p>1. Administration—executor not liable to account to legatees for proceeds of sale of land, where they avoid the sale. An executor, under decree of the county court, sold real estate of his testator, giving a deed warranting the regularity and validity of the proceedings to sell, and received the purchase money, with which he charged himself in his reports. Before the distribution of the money the legatees, repudiating the sale, brought ejectment, and recovered the land for want of jurisdiction in the county court to make the decree of sale, whereupon the executor refunded the price of the land to the purchaser, and refused to charge himself further with the same in his reports, and the legatees sought to charge him with this money, claiming he was estopped to deny it belonged to the estate by his former reports: Held,, the court properly refused to make him account for the money, and that there was no estoppel in the case.</p> <p>2. Covnty court—has equitable jurisdiction. The county court to the extent it has jurisdiction (and this extends to the settlement of estates of deceased persons) exercises equitable jurisdiction.</p> <p>3. Mistake—maybe corrected in equity. In equity, if a person by accident.or mistake, in making up his accounts with another, has charged himself with too much or too little, the real facts will govern, and the mistake will be corrected as the facts warrant, and he will be charged only with what he justly owes. And this rule obtains in the accounts of administrators, executors and guardians made to the county court, and their reports will not be held conclusive on them.</p> <p>4. Same—former decision. In the matter of Steele, Guardian, 65 Ill. 326, the guardian was held, upon the facts in that case, not to be concluded by his report as to moneys with which he was therein charged,—but the court added: “If a report was fair upon the face, without any apparent mistake, we do not wish to be understood as holding that parol evidence would then