Donley & Anderson v. Cundiff

Citations

• 35 Tex. 741

Syllabus

<p>1. Under the laws in force prior to the present Constitution, the county-court, sitting in probate, had jurisdiction, under the one hundred and nineteenth section of the Act of March, 1848 (Paschal’s Digest, Article 1880), of the complaint of an administrator against parties who withheld from him any papers belonging to the estate under his charge.</p> <p>£}. An absolute transfer of promissory notes by endorsement in blank for a legal consideration, although made to attorneys of the indorser’s judgment creditors, as a means whereby the attorneys could collect the notes and discharge the judgments, divested the indorser of all property in or control over the notes ; and therefore, after the death of the indorser, his administrator had no right to enforce a surrender of the notes to him by the attorneys. Such a transfer was to all intents a complete assignment to the attorneys as trustees for the benefit of the creditors ; and it was not revoked or defeated by the subsequent death of the assignor. The attorneys, however, would be liable to the assignor’s administrator, in damages, for any negligence on their part, by which the estate might have suffered loss; and, of course, they were also liable to the creditors.</p>