Roberts v. Johns

Citations

• 24 S.C. 580
• 1886 S.C. LEXIS 81

Syllabus

<p>1. Where the validity of an order of final discharge granted by a probate judge is a matter at issue, and he has become the master for that county, the Circuit Judge may refer the case to a special master to state the accounts; and as the order of reference conferred only the powers of a special master, it was not vitiated by designating the officer a “special referee.”</p> <p>2. The time when the statute of limitations began to run in favor of the administrator in this case has been already adjudicated in the case of Roberts v. Johns, 16 S. G., 184.</p> <p>3. Erom the time when a trustee should finally account to his cestuis que trust, the presumption begins to run in his favor and is complete at the end of twenty years; but upon settlement made or disavowal of trust (which is a claim of full accounting), the statute of limitation bars a reopening of such accounting after the expiration of six years.</p> <p>4. An act done by an administrator manifesting to the beneficiaries an intention to throw off the trust, gives currency to the statute of limitations in his favor; but the returns made to the probate judge, showing a claim by the administrator to certain assets in his own right, do not charge the beneficiaries with notice of an adverse claim by the administrator, and the statute did not commence to run in his favor until his final discharge.</p> <p>5. A compromise made by an administrator shortly after the war, sustained, notwithstanding subsequent events show that the whole amount might have been collected; and under the same circumstances he was charged only with the amounts collected on two of the assets of the . estate.</p> <p>6. An administrator-allowed credit for the expenses of certain journeys made by him in good faith for the benefit of the estate.</p> <p>7. An administrator is not entitled to commissions during the years that ho neglected to make returns, there having been nothing to prevent it.</p> <p>8. The costs of this case were properly charged