Carney v. Merchants' Union Trust Co.

Citations

• 252 Pa. 381
• 97 A. 470
• 1916 Pa. LEXIS 625

Syllabus

<p>Courts — Decedents’ estates — Jurisdiction, C. P. — Jurisdiction, O. C. — Lis pendens.</p> <p>1. The authority of the Orphans’ Court is ample not only to ascertain the amount of the estate of a decedent and order its distribution but to determine all questions arising out of alleged defaults of his personal representative and to enforce its conclusion by an appropriate decree. The court has all the means of enforcing the decree possessed by courts of equity and of law.</p> <p>2. In a suit in equity brought in the Common Pleas Court to compel the executor of a decedent’s estate and the wife of decedent to pay over to a trustee for the use of the estate, a fund realized from the sale of certain land situated in Florida, for which it was alleged the executor had failed to account and where it appeared that plaintiffs had previously elected to submit their claim to the Orphans’ Court, that the proceedings therein were still pending and that the Orphans’ Court had full power to afford plaintiffs adequate relief, the lower court did not err in deciding that plaintiffs were precluded by their action in the Orphans’ Court, from seeking the same relief in the Common Pleas and properly dismissed the bill.</p>