502
The Green Bag
pound of flesh, and all the little drops of blood. After skirmishing about, the claim ant-executor's resourceful lawyer finally discovered a late statute, still all but lost in the innumerable session laws, that seemed to have been enacted espec ially to fit such a case. It provided: — "In all cases where an executor or administrator shall or may have paid in good faith any debts or claims against the estate which he represents, without the same having been duly filed, ap proved or allowed as required by law and his final account has not yet been settled, such payments may be allowed by the court having jurisdiction of the matter, upon proof satisfactory to said court that said debts or claims were just and existing demands against said estate at the time of the payment and were paid within the time limited by law for the presentation of claims." Due notice was provided for, etc. This providential statute seemed to fit upon all fours with the facts and cir cumstances in this case. Nevertheless the judge of the Orphans' Court took the case under advisement for a time, so as carefully to re-examine the testimony and the law. It goes against the grain for a court to decide against the established hard and fast rules of the law of generations, on the strength of an unconstrued par venu statute, though the circumstances cry aloud for "natural and inherent justice." But the judge eventually decided for the claimant-executor, saying, among other things in his memorandum of decision, the following: — The question is not alone, What is the natural and inherent justice of the case? but it is. Are the principles and rules of equity sufficiently broad and comprehensive to reach the case? The testimony indicates with reference to his
claim that, while the claimant should have filed it earlier and in due season, still the equities are with him. There is no question on the facts but that he expended considerable sums of money for the deceased and saw that she was well taken care of. On the other hand the defendant here, who gets the bulk of the estate under the will, inter poses technical objections and is making every effort to retain the estate for himself and to avoid the re-payment of funds for the care and support of the deceased in her lifetime. The record shows, practically without dis pute, that there was expended for the deceased by the claimant in all the sum of $987.53. It is clear that there should be a recovery from the estate of this full amount unless there are clear and positive reasons to the contrary. If there are doubts as to the construction of the law, the claimant in this case is entitled to the benefit thereof, and the Court is inclined to the opinion that under the new statute, and the facts as testified thereto, the claim was season ably and legally filed as having baen paid in good faith by the executor before the time for filing claims had expired, and should be allowed. Of course the case was in due time appealed to the Superior Court — a court of general jurisdiction, where the technicalities of the law are, perhaps necessarily, more persistently heeded and given full credit. The matter was there retried by the court, without a jury, on the identical testimony and record, by stipulation of the parties. The judge of the Superior Court, too, was perplexed. He also took the case under advisement for a considerable period. He was a most careful, able, and conscientious judicial officer. He wanted to do "natural and inherent justice." However, as this jurist had fre quently been battered about, pummeled, and reversed by the mighty and autocratic appellate court above him, for trying to deal out justice by wink ing at technicalities on occasion, he had evidently literally been whipped into line, to decide things with an eye as to
