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HARVARD LAW REVIEW

and Abram v. Cunningham, both of which had been cited as law in leading books.[1]

In spite of this line of cases there is a trend of authority leading in the other direction. The year book case is the earliest authority. Moreover the courts have held, as we have seen, that an administrator, or an executor under a forged will, can give a good discharge to the deceased's debtor.[2] And then there are the cases of admin- istrations durante minore aetate, pendente lite, durante absentia, and durante animi aut corporis vitio.[3]

The administration durante minore aetate was recognized at common law in Piggot's case,[4] though later it rested in part on Stat. 38 Geo. 3, c. 87, § 6. It has not clearly been decided whether in the event of such an administrator selling not in due course of administration to one who purchases in good faith that an indefeasible title passes. But Williams states that it does;[5] and in the recent case of In re Cope[6] Jessel, M. R., said of such a representative

"The limit to his administration is no doubt the minority of the person, but there is no other limit. He is an ordinary administrator: he is appointed for the very purpose of getting in the estate, paying the debts, and selling the estate in the usual way; and the property vests in him."

An administration pendente lite when the controversy before the ordinary had to do with a will was once considered utterly void.[7] But it was held later that such an administrator could receive debts of the estate, though, indeed, it was said by way of dictum that the property in the goods was in the executor.[8] If the executor named in the will or the next of kin were out of the country the probate court had power to grant before probate obtained or letters issued an administrator durante absentia.[9] It has been held that an administrator de bonis non cum testamento annexo durante absentia

  1. ↑ I Williams, Executors, 10 ed., 461, 462. But see i Woerner, Amer. Law Adm., 2 ed., § 274.
  2. ↑ Allen V. Dundas, 3 T. R. 125 (1789); Prosser v. Wagner, i C. B. (n. s.) 289 (1856).
  3. ↑ Compare Patton's Appeal, 31 Pa. St. 465 (1858).
  4. ↑ 5 Rep. 29.
  5. ↑ I Williams, Executors, 10 ed., 393.
  6. ↑ 16 Ch. D. 49, 52.
  7. ↑ Frederick v. Hook, Carth. 153.
  8. ↑ Walker v. Woollaston, 2 P. Wms. 576, 588 (1731)-
  9. ↑ Clare v. Hedges, i Lutw. 342.
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