Dewald v. Berkheiser

Citations

• 19 Pa. Super. 570
• 1902 Pa. Super. LEXIS 154

Syllabus

<p>Decedent's estates — Jurisdiction of orphans' court — Creditors—Distributees.</p> <p>The orphans’ court alone has authority to determine the amount of a decedent’s property, and order its distribution. A common-law action cannot be sustained against an executor or administrator to recover a distributive share of the estate of a decedent. The only authority for a common-law action by one who claims not as a creditor, but as a distributee or legatee, is found in the Act of February 24, 1834, P. L. 73, sec. 50; but an action cannot be sustained even under this section to recover a legacy which is subject to a condition Unperformed, nor by a mere creditor.</p> <p>The legatee of the residue of ail estate cannot recover that residue by an action under said section of the act, for the amount of that residue would be dependent upon an accounting in the orphans’ court, which has exclusive jurisdiction to determine the amount of the estates of decedents.</p> <p>After the orphans’ court has determined the amount of the residuary estate, and the amounts of the several legacies, which under the terms of the will were not definite or specific, and could not be made so Until the amount for distribution was judicially determined, the jurisdiction to enforce that decree i-emains exclusive in the orphans’ court.</p> <p>Where a testator has given his whole estate to his executors to convert into money and to invest, and to pay the interest accruing from the same to his widow for her maintenance, and if the interest is insufficient for that purpose to pay her out of principal such “ sum or sums, as she may designate, or be in need of,” and after the death of the widow to distribute the unexpended principal to parties named, a person cannot, after the death of the widow, maintain an action in the court of common pleas against the executors, on the ground that he had a contract with the widow under which he avers that he was to receive a certain sum per week for keeping her, that the