Gœhring's Estate

Citations

• 263 Pa. 47
• 106 A. 60
• 1919 Pa. LEXIS 372

Syllabus

<p>Executors and administrators — Accounts—Auditors—Delay of proceedings before auditor — Surcharge—Gosts.</p> <p>1. Where exceptions to an executor’s account have been passed' upon by three auditors in succession, and the proceedings have been prolonged for four years in the distribution of a small estate, the executor will not be surcharged for any of the costs, if it appears that the responsibility for the delay attached to the failure of the first auditor to rule properly upon an objection made to the competency of a witness.</p> <p>Evidence — Competency of witness — Party dead — Cross-examination.</p> <p>2. Where a claimant again§t a decedent’s estate is called as a •witness in his own behalf and testifies to facts occurring since the death of the deceased, and, on cross-examination, is interrogated as to matters occurring in the lifetime, he becomes a competent witness for himself as to all relevant and material matters; but this rule does not apply to a case where a witness is called on his own behalf and is permitted against objection to testify fully as to matters that had occurred in the lifetime of the deceased. To hold that a cross-examination of the witness as to such matters was a waiver of tbe objection to bis competency, and accredited bim as a witness, would be a perversion of tbe rule robbing it of all reason.</p>