Taylor v. Pettus

Decided January 15, 1875

Supreme Court of Alabama · decided 1875-01-15

On the 20th day of August, 1873, Mary Pettus, in behalf of herself and a minor child, filed her petition in the probate court praying that appellant Taylor, the administrator de bonis non of her deceased .husband, be ordered to pay into court for the benefit of herself and minor child, out of moneys in his hands, derived from a sale of the real and personal property of intestate for the purpose of paying debts, the “ average value in money of one hundred and sixty acres of…

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Decided 1875-01-15

How this case has been cited

Cited by 5 later decisions — most recently March 1939

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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JUDGE, J.

¶1The act of the 23d of April, 1873, on which the proceeding in this case seems to be based, was not intended to have, nor can it have, any retroactive operation. All the rights which the family of the deceased had in property of the estate, exempt from administration, accrued to and vested in them under and by virtue of the laws upon that subject which were of force at the time of the death of the husband. The probate court, in deciding otherwise, committed an error.

¶2It is not necessary, in this case, that we should discuss or decide the question as to the jurisdiction of the probate court to render moneyed decrees in cases similar to the present.

¶3For the error above named, the decree of the court below must be reversed and the petition here dismissed.