Opinion
April 18, 1944.
May 22, 1944.
Decedents' estates — Accounts — Family settlements — Presumption — Lapse of time — Previous adjudication — General property — Heirs — Executor.
1. One cannot compel an account to be filed in the estate of a person who has been dead for so long that a presumption of a family settlement exists. [454]
2. Real property of a decedent passes directly to the heirs and his executors have no interest in it unless the estate is insolvent. [454]
Argued April 18, 1944.
Before MAXEY, C. J., DREW, LINN, STERN, PATTERSON, STEARNE and HUGHES, JJ.
Appeal, No. 13, Jan. T., 1944, from decree of O. C., Lackawanna Co., 1940, No. 829, in Estate of Emma A. Plummer, deceased. Decree affirmed.
Audit of account of executor.
The facts are stated in the opinion of the court below as follows:
The decedent, Emma A. Plummer, died testate, March 10, 1940, and her executor filed its account to which exceptions have been filed on behalf of Emma W. Campbell, a granddaughter of decedent. The decedent was the widow of Edward E. Cannon, deceased, and she was named life-tenant in his will, "with power of disposal" of his estate; the exceptant being a remainderman.
The exceptions are to the alleged failure of the executor to account for decedent's administration of the Estate of Edward E. Cannon, deceased, and its failure to describe an interest in coal lands. The third exception is a declaration of the exceptant's interest: See 253 Pa. 447.
Edward E. Cannon died in 1883. In 1938 the father of the exceptant, as administrator of the estate of her mother, by petition to this court prayed for a citation directed to Emma A. Plummer to show cause why an accounting should not be made. In Cannon's Estate, 330 Pa. 513, it was held that after fifty-four years a family settlement must be presumed and in such a case an accounting was unnecessary. We cannot now permit what was then refused.
As to the second exception the lands of the decedent pass directly to heirs and executors have no interest unless the estate be insolvent.
And now, January 7, 1943, the motion to dismiss is sustained and the exceptions overruled.
Exceptant appealed.
Marshall G. Jones, for appellant.
T. A. Donahoe, for appellee.
The decree is affirmed on the opinion of the court below. Appellant to pay the costs.