White v. Offield

Citations

• 90 Va. 336
• 18 S.E. 436
• 1893 Va. LEXIS 55

Syllabus

<p>Personal Representatives — Payment—•Limitations—Case at bar. — Balance in administrator’s hands at settlement of his accounts was ordered in 1868 to be apportioned among the creditors, the amount to each being ascertained. In 1887 a creditor filed his bill to establish his claim against the administrator’s sureties. On demurrer the bill was dismissed and never amended, nor the decision reversed. He then filed his petition in a lien suit pending against the administrator, asking that his debt be paid out of the fund.</p> <p>Held :</p> <p>(1) The order, which was in effect a judgment, was barred in ten years.</p> <p>(2) The lapse of time raises the presumption of payment, and the laches are fatal.</p> <p>(3) The question having been decided and the suit dismissed, and no appeal taken, the question is res judicata.</p>