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6S4 NEALE v. HAGTHROP.
The real estate of an intestate devolves at once and entirely
upon his heirs by the mere operation of law. But his personal
property is, by the law itself, cast upon no one; nor does the legal
ownership of it vest immediately in any person. Such a legal
title can only vest in an administrator, who alone is considered as
the legal representative of the intestate as to his chattels real and
personal estate. In the interval between the death of the intestate
and the granting of administration, the legal right to the personal
property is in the keeping of the law. During that interval there
is no one who can sue or be sued for it; so that a person who
had, after the death of the intestate, obtained possession of his
personal property, could not have it quieted or matured into a
right by the lapse of any length of time, even as much as forty
years uninterrupted possession, before the granting of letters of
administration; because, the statute of limitations could not be
allowed to operate at all until the legal title was vested in some
one; and there was a person lawfully clothed with a capacity to
sue for, hold and dispose of such property, (f)
Our statute of distributions, like that of England, (g) directs the
goods, chattels, and credits of those who die intestate, to be com-
mitted to an administrator whose powers and duties are prescribed.
He has a nested interest in the personal estate of the deceased, (h)
and is directed to collect and take the whole of it into his posses-
sion; which, or the proceeds of the sales thereof, he is, in the first
place, to apply to the satisfaction of all the debts due from the in-
testate; and then, he is to distribute the surplus among the next
of kin of the deceased. Although the creditors of the deceased
are to be first provided for under this statute, yet the next of kin,
among whom the surplus is to be distributed, take an interest
which vests in them, by operation of law immediately. It is con-
sidered as a species of chose in action of an indefinite value; in
nature of a present debt, payable at a future day. (i) This inte-
rest vests in those who are the next of kin of the deceased at the
time of his death; not, however, in exclusion of a posthumous
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(f) Stanford's case, Cro. Jac. 61; Jolliffe v. Pitt, 2 Vern. 695; Cary v. Stephen-
son, 2 Salk. 421; Murray v. The East India Company, 7 Com, Law Hep. 6T;
Fishwick v. Sewell, 4 H. & J. 394; Haslett v. Glenn, 7 H. & J. 17. —(g) Bac. Abr.
tit. Executors and Administrators, I. —(h) Blackborough v. Davis, 1 P. Will. 42, —
(t) Browne v. Shore, 1 Show. 2 and 25; Palmer v. Allicock, 2 Show. 407; S. C. 3
Mod. 59; Squib v. Wyn, 1 P. Will, 380; Palmer v. Garrard, Prece. Chan. 21;
Doran v. Simpson, 4 Ves, 665.
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