Ames v. Clarke

Decided March 15, 1871

Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court · decided 1871-03-15

Contract on a bond signed by the defendant Henry 0. Clarke, as principal, and the defendant John Firth and Henry Goulding, as sureties, conditioned for the faithful performance by Henry O. Clarke of his duties as executor of the will of Hannah B. Mason. Henry Goulding died, and the defendants William P. Goulding and Dwight Foster were appointed his executors. The suit was brought on behalf of William Clarke. Writ dated September 16, 1869.

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1871-03-15

How this case has been cited

Cited by 9 later decisions (1 by the Supreme Court) — most recently February 2008

1 federal appellate · 5 state decisions

Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

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Wells, J.

¶1The annuity vested absolutely in William Clarke. As a vested right, it was assignable, without words expressly making it so, in the terms of the bequest. The proviso that it should not be liable for his debts, while in the hands of the executor, did not give the executor any authority to control his disposition of it, nor deprive him of the right to dispose of it by bis voluntary act. The assignment was not void, if even voidable.

¶2Payments by the executor, in accordance with the order therefor in the instrument of assignment, are good until that order and assignment has been legally rescinded. It has not been so rescinded in fact; and its voidable character cannot be relied on to *575maintain an action upon the executor’s bond for breach of duty in paying the annuity to the assignee, or refusing to pay it to the plaintiff. In this suit, payment upon his order to an assignee for value is a sufficient defence. Judgment for the defendants.