Commonwealth v. Gregory

Citations

• 261 Pa. 106
• 104 A. 562
• 1918 Pa. LEXIS 694

Syllabus

<p>Public officers — Register of wills — Liability on official bond — Failure to require bond from foreign executor — Default—Act of March 15,1882, P. L. 185, Section 27 — Devastavit—Decree of Orphans’ Court — ■Conclusiveness—Presumption of duty performed— Rebutted by pleadings — Action on register’s bond — Register’s liability.</p> <p>1. After letters testamentary are granted, even though improperly, the person named therein is a de facto executor, answerable for his deeds to the Orphans’ Court, until duly discharged by the revocation of his prima facie right to act.</p> <p>2. The meaning of the provision of the Act of March 15, 1832, P. L. 135, Section 27, that letters granted to a nonresident executor without the register taking a bond shall be void, is that the letters thus improperly granted are void only when judicially so declared by a proper tribunal, and they must be so adjudged upon showing the nonentry of a bond.</p> <p>3. While the Act of 1832 provides that a person to whom letters are improperly granted shall be deemed and “may be sued and in all respects treated as an executor of his own wrong,” it does not require that he must be so sued and treated, the manifest intent being that such a person shall be liable not only to citation from the Orphans’ Court but also to suit at law as an executor de ¡son tort.</p> <p>4. Payments made to one to whom letters testamentary have been granted, while such letters are in force, even though subsequently revoked, are lawful acts, in consequence of which the person named therein as executor may be cited by the Orphans’ Court to settle an account.</p> <p>5. Where a nonresident executor is guilty of culpable acts of omission resulting in loss to the estate, he and the domiciliary executor are jointly responsible for the resulting loss.</p> <p>6. Where a register of wills granted ancillary letters testamentary to a nonresident executor without obtaining a bond as required by the Act of March 15, 1832, P. L. 135, Sectio