In re Healy's Estate

Citations

• 6 Cal. Unrep. 780
• 66 P. 175
• 1901 Cal. LEXIS 1261

Syllabus

<p>Administrator—Attorneys Acting for Different Parties.—Code of Civil Procedure, sections 1597-1599, provides that, when a person who is bound by contract in writing to convey any real estate dies before making the conveyance, the court, after a hearing in which all interested parties may appear, may decree that his executor or administrator convey such realty to the person entitled thereto; and section 1664 declares that in all estates any person claiming to be an heir to the deceased may file a petition in the estate to ascertain and declare the rights of all persons to the estate, in which petition the name of the administrator shall be set forth, and a notice served on him. In the settlement of an estate, a nephew of the deceased claimed the entire estate by virtue of a promise made by the deceased' to leave the claimant the property in consideration of certain services. Held, that the administrator was a proper, if not necessary, party, under either theory of the action, and hence the attorneys for the estate could not act as the attorneys for the claimant.</p> <p>Administrator—Acquiescence in Conduct of Attorneys.—Where an administrator knew that his attorneys had been retained by one of the heirs to prosecute a claim for the entire estate under promise of the deceased, and did not intervene in the action, or discharge his attorneys, he will be deemed to have acquiesced in the conduct of his attorneys.</p> <p>Administrator—Grounds for Removal.—Civil Code, Section 2230, declares that neither a trustee nor any of his agents may take part in any transaction concerning the trust in which he or anyone for whom he acts as agent has an interest adverse to that of his beneficiary, and section 2233 stipulates that, if a trustee acquires any interest, or becomes charged with any duty, adverse to the interest of his beneficiary in the subject of the trust, he may at once be removed. Held, that an administrator who acquiesced in the conduct of his attorneys in accepting