into court the sum of $7,650, to be paid the petitioner, and that the receiver bonds be put in suit.

of the court to say that the fact that the defendant owes this precise sum is so conclusively established as to be open to no further controversy at any stage of the controversy.

In McKim v. Thompson, 1 Bland, 155, the chancellor, there, in dealing with this subject, said: "It is held to be a fundamental axiom that the judgment of a court must be the conclusion of law arising from the facts presented to it. And in the application of this maxim there is nothing peculiar in the character of the court, or in the mode

This brings us to a consideration of the questions raised on the appeals, from the decrees of the 20th of July and August 5, 1910, relating to the Fairbanks Company's claim, being the amount of the notes held by them and which the auditor found were included in the unauthorized overissue of notes. Practically, the only question before the auditor was the fact whether the notes formed a part of the unauthorized issue. By the order of the 3d day of December, of judicial proceeding, by which it can be 1909, the papers were referred to the auditor "to state an account of all notes issued by the receiver in excess of the authority conferred by the orders of court, and showing whether or not the receiver's notes held by the Fairbanks Company were included in the unauthorized overissue. The report of the auditor, on May 2, 1910, shows that he was unable to ascertain the total overissue, but that the Fairbanks notes were a part of them. The court in its decrees here appealed against not only ratified the auditor's report as to the finding of the overissue, but it made this report a basis for the order, directing the receiver to bring the amount of the Fairbanks notes into court to be paid to that company and directed the bonds of the receiver to be put in suit. In other words, the court held that, because the auditor found that these notes were overissues, the finding of this fact was a sufficient reason and ground for directing the money to be brought into court, and to be paid to the holder of these notes.

[1] There was error, we think, in all three of the directions of this decree, because, it is well settled, that an order of this character is in the nature of a final judgment and decree, and it will not be passed except upon such proofs and findings as will conclusively establish the party's liability and that the money is due and payable by the party directed to bring it into court.

at all affected or varied. It is a fundamental principle applicable to all courts, and from which none are allowed to depart. The judgment of a court of law is the legal result of the facts admitted by the parties, or found by the jury; and so, too the decree of a court of chancery is the result, according to principles of equity, arising from the facts found in the bill, answer, proceedings and proofs. Such is the acknowledged foundation of all final and general judgments or decrees. But interlocutory orders and decrees affecting rights must, so far as they go, have a similar basis, because no court of judicature can arbitrarily make a partial, any more than a total, disposition of the rights of things or persons, without such a foundation. The judge can go no further than to apply the rule to the case, or to pronounce the law upon the facts, either partially or wholly. It is of the very nature of judicial power to be so limited. It is, however, of no importance, as regards this principle, how the facts are made to appear, or in what shape they are presented to the tribunal; whether by confession, by arithmetical calculation, by necessary deduction, or by positive and direct proof. It is enough that the facts are so placed before the tribunal as to preclude all further denial of them. The court may then be called on, in cases like this, to pass an order, or, in other words, to pronounce the equity resulting from the facts.”

We shall not undertake to recapitulate the facts, nor to answer the various contentions of the parties to the record, in this case, because we are clearly of the opinion that the decrees, upon this state of the record, were not properly passed.

In Dillon v. Connecticut Ins. Co., 44 Md. 386, it is said, though the practice of ordering money into court has become one of the most ordinary methods by which the court enforces its jurisdiction of preserving prop erty in dispute pending a litigation, there are certain well-defined restrictions and limitations upon it which courts of equity should There was no proper foundation to jusalways be careful to observe. These limitify the final decree, directing the money tations are well stated in the cases in to be paid to the Fairbanks Company, or our own state. Daniell, Ch. Pr. c. 41, § 1; Contee v. Dawson, 2 Bland, 270.

In Hopkins v. McEldery, 4 Md. Ch. 23, the chancellor said the facts upon which the party relies must be found in the case, either admitted or so established as to be open to no further controversy at any subsequent stage of the proceedings, and in concluding the opinion held that, at all

to warrant the conclusion of the liability of the receiver to this company. The fact that these notes were unauthorized did not justify a decree or judgment for the amount of the notes, in favor of the Fairbanks Company, under the facts of the case. It was not conclusive as to his liability without further proceedings, and without an opportunity to defend, and this liability was clearly de

asset of the trust estate for distribution by | error in the auditor to have charged them a tne receivers, but a claim to be asserted in second time. an action at law, by the Fairbanks Company, if such right existed.

As to the error of a cash balance of $330.17 charged against the receiver, there seems The record shows the assets of the com- to be but little doubt. The ledger shows pany for distribution to claimants amounted that this was an overdraft, and not a cash to about $21,504, while the receiver's certifi- | balance on hand, and was charged as a liacates outstanding which constitute a first bility of the receiver with bills payable, lien amount to $30,000.

[2] Besides this, there are other holders of unauthorized notes in the same position as the Fairbanks Company, and the order of court constituted a preference over the other creditors in the identical situation. The question of the measure of damages and the liability of a person acting in a representative capacity, for an unauthorized act, is settled in this state, and. elsewhere. Broumel v. Rayner, 68 Md. 47, 11 Atl. 833; Lane, Adm'x, v. Lantz, 27 Md. 212; Fairbanks v. Humphries, 18 Q. B. Div. 54; Simmons v. Patchett, 7 El. & Bl. 570; Cyc. vol. 34, p. 303.

The next inquiry relates to the appeals from the decrees directing the receiver to bring into court the sum of $3,942.52, alleged to be the funds of the receivership misappropriated by him. It is admitted there is a balance, an overdraft of about $800, due by the receiver to the trust estate, for

funds unaccounted for; but it is insisted

that the principle adopted and the method by which the liability of the receiver was ascertained in the case was improper and

erroneous.

It will be seen that the books and accounts of the receiver were kept by an accountant appointed by the court, and they appear to be in proper balance. The record shows that the account contains an entry of all amounts advanced by the receiver to the trust estate, and the repayment of those amounts by him. A separate account was kept on the books, marked "Edgar Zielian," and it shows the transactions of the receiver with the company in this regard.

The basis of the co-receivers' claim is that the receiver has overdrawn this personal account, and the auditor so found to the extent of the amount stated in the decree, and it was directed to be brought into court.

etc.

It is not

[4] The remaining question is whether the $14,800 loaned by Hopper and others to the receiver constituted a proper credit to the receiver's personal account, and this depends largely upon whether the money belonged to the company, or was raised upon obligations for which the company is liable. claimed that the money was taken from the funds of the company, and it is difficult to see, under the facts of this case, upon what ground the company can be held liable, upon the unauthorized notes that were issued by the receiver upon which the money was raised. The notes were signed, "Edgar Zielian, Receiver," and were indorsed by him personally. The purchaser of these receiver's notes took them with constructive notice of the receiver's want of authority to issue them, and the company is not liable on the

notes.

[5] The money went into the company's

treasury and plant, and the receiver has a right to a credit therefor. Nat. Bank v.

Lange, 51 Md. 144, 34 Am. Rep. 304; Marbury v. Ehlen, 72 Md. 206, 19 Atl. 648, 20 Am. St. Rep. 467; Gable v. Cheston, 51 Md.

352.

We find no error in that part of the order removing the appellant as receiver and denying him commissions, and it will be affirmed in this respect.

It follows, for the reasons stated, that the decrees of the 20th of July, 1910, and of the 5th of August, 1910, in re the Fairbanks Company will be reversed. The decrees of the 20th of July, 1910, and of August 5, 1910, in re the petition of the co-receivers, will be affirmed in part and reversed in part, and the cause remanded for a new accounting, with costs. Decrees of the 20th of July, 1910, and of August 5, 1910, in re Fairbanks Company's claim reversed. The decrees in re co-receivers claim, affirmed in [3] The first question presented here is part and reversed in part, and cause rewhether the receiver shall be held accounta-manded for new accounting, with costs to ble for certain checks drawn by him as such the appellant, on all four appeals. receiver and payable to his own order or to the order of his individual creditors. While his liability in this respect is not denied, it appears that these checks were charged in the ledger to his personal account, and the effect of the auditor's again charging them was to charge him twice with the same payments. The record shows that the money was charged to his personal account, and, this having been done, it was

(115 Md. 614)

In re BRISTOR'S ESTATE. (Court of Appeals of Maryland. April 19, 1911.)

1. INSANE PERSONS (§ 27*) - INQUISITION

RIGHT TO REVIEW.

Under Code Pub. Gen. Laws 1904, art. 16. § 107, giving the chancery court authority to direct the affairs of insane persons, and under Code Pub. Gen. Laws 1904, art. 5, § 26, per

3. INSANE PERSONS (§ 27*) — INQUISITION

REVIEW.

The finding of the jury in an inquisition as to insanity is not conclusive on appeal, though they had opportunity to observe the appearance and demeanor of the alleged insane during a protracted hearing and while she was testifying.

supported my son. He is not a strong man, and at one time early in life he had an attack of melancholia and wandered from home hoping to get a position. He is a member of the Presbyterian Church, perfectly moral in his habits, but in my opinion persons who have had mental trouble should not marry, and Charles would be a prey if I left him all I have made or even all I have inherited. I provide for him amply, but at his death

these rents in which he has a life interest

go to the Presbyterian Board for special work among destitute girls in India, China and Africa. The other deed will convey a number of ground rents to you for the same work." (It was stated elsewhere in the letter that these rents would amount to about $1,[Ed. Note. For other cases, see Insane Per-000 per year.) "What I have reserved for sons, Dec. Dig. § 27.*] myself, my son's and my own use, will prob1. INSANE PERSONS (§ 2*)-INQUISITION-EV-ably be deeded to you later on, or at least Evidence held insufficient to sustain a find- some to home and some to foreign. My ing of insanity on inquisition. tastes are all literary and I greatly wished to do some good work in that line before I go, but more was to be made by attending

IDENCE.

[Ed. Note. For other cases, see Insane Persons, Dec. Dig. § 2.*]

Appeal from Circuit Court No. 2 of Bal- to investments, and I have made in twenty timore City; George M. Sharp, Judge.

In the matter of the estate of Jane B. Moore Bristor. From an order confirming the finding of the jury on an inquisition as to insanity of the said Bristor, she appeals. Reversed, and inquisition quashed.

Argued before BOYD, C. J., and BRISCOE,

PEARCE, PATTISON, and URNER, JJ.

years more than three times what was left
me by my mother, besides giving away about
thirty thousand dollars.
* I want to
deed now lest I should be called away sud-
denly. • * *
My mother was very much

impressed many years ago by the statement

faithfully to all his affairs that he left direcin the life of Wesley that he attended so

tions what should be done with any loose change that might be found in his pockets at the time of his death."

H. N. Abercrombie and William L. Marbury (Francis A. Buschman, on the brief), for appellant. George Moore Brady and William Milnes Maloy, for Charles M. Bris-handed by Mrs. Bristor to her son Charles tor.

URNER, J. The appellant, Jane B. Moore Bristor, on September 16, 1910, wrote to a representative of the Board of Foreign Missions of the Presbyterian Church a letter in part as follows: "As I have entered my seventieth year and am an invalid from exposure and wounds received upon battle fields of the Rebellion where with my mother I worked to relieve the wounded, I am putting my affairs in order to be ready for the great summons. Lately I have given my pictures and books largely to Lincoln University and Ashville Industrial School, N. C., and as I read again in The Land of the Vedas of the awful condition of women in India I long to do something for their relief. If I had known that special work would be allowed, then several deeds that have been made to the American Board would have been in favor of my beloved church. * * * I intend to prepare, that is my lawyers will, two deeds, one of which will give to my son, my only living child, about forty years old, and single, nearly one thousand dollars per year in ground rents and in which he is to have a life interest only. *** I have always

This letter, sealed in an envelope, was

to be mailed. He performed this duty after he had opened and read the letter and had it copied by his attorneys. Soon afterwards he filed a petition in circuit court No. 2 of Baltimore City for an inquisition as to his mother's sanity. He alleges in substance in the petition that his mother has been for more than 10 years past "of that degree of unsoundness of mind that unfits her to be in possession of her property and to be clothed with the power of alienating any part of her estate"; that she has been "a woman of strong personality and active mentality; that she was a nurse on battlefields in the Civil War, and during her subsequent years has suffered from the exposure and hardship to which she was subject in that honorable service"; that her husband, from whom she was divorced, is deceased; that she has been for many years interested in the temperance cause, but more recently has devoted all her time, thought, and energy to the woman's suffrage cause and the work of foreign missions; that to such an extent has she thought and written upon these movements and so largely has she contributed to their advancement, especially in the case of mission work in foreign fields, that her mind, enfeebled by

It is provided by article 5, § 26, of the Code, that: "An appeal shall be allowed from any final decree, or order in the nature of a final decree, passed by a court of equity, by any one or more persons parties to the suit.

*

*

While we have found no instance of an appeal to this court from a decree ratifying an inquisition of lunacy, there are cases in which appeals from orders refusing to supersede inquisitions, where restoration to sanity was claimed, or to rescind the decree of confirmation for alleged irregularity in the pro

Safe Deposit Co., 104 Md. 460, 65 Atl. 333; Greenwade v. Greenwade, 43 Md. 313; Royal Arcanum v. Nicholson, 104 Md. 472, 65 Atl. 320. The only statutory authority under which the right to prosecute such appeals could have existed is that contained in the section last cited. In Tome v. Stump, 89 Md. 264, 42 Atl. 902, the right of appeal, under this section, from an order appointing a committee for an habitual drunkard, was distinctly recognized. The power to supersede the inquisition is derived from the same statutory source as the power to set it aside originally. In every such instance the judicial authority described in the section quoted is as "comprehensive as language can make it." Estate of Dorney, 59 Md. 69. The court may refuse to issue a commission, even in a case of undoubted insanity, if such refusal appears to be for the best interests of the person affected. Rebecca Owings Case, 1

advancing years, is now controlled by delusions on the subjects indicated, and especially that of foreign missions; and that she is deprived of reason and judgment and is impelled to give nearly all of her property to foreign mission work to the exclusion of her relatives, who have had every reason to expect to be the natural objects of her bounty. This application was supported by the petitioner's affidavit, and a writ was issued by order of the court directing the sheriff of Baltimore city to inquire by a jury "whether the said Jane B. Moore Bristor be so far deprived of her understanding that she is al-ceedings, have been entertained. Johnson v. together unfit and unable to govern herself or to manage her affairs." A jury of 14 members was impaneled, and, after a prolonged and contested hearing, 12 of the jurors, being a sufficient number under the law (Alexander's Chancery Practice, 224), joined in a finding that Mrs. Bristor was of unsound mina and incapable of the government of herself or the management of her property. After the return of the inquisition to the circuit court, a motion to quash was filed by Mrs. Bristor upon various grounds, of which the only ones necessary to be considered were that the inquisition was tried and heard by the sheriff's deputy and not by the sheriff in person, and that the finding was against the evidence and the weight of the evidence adduced before the jury. A complete stenographic record was kept of all the testimony taken at the inquisition and was filed in the court below as part of the proceedings. Upon the evidence thus presented the court sus-Bland, 293. And the inquisition may be set tained the finding of the jury, confirmed the inquisition, and appointed a committee to assume control of Mrs. Bristor's person and estate. In the oral opinion of the learned judge who passed the decree his conclusion was stated, as to the two specific objections we have mentioned, that the verdict of the jury was correct on the evidence, and that no satisfactory authority had been shown for invalidating the inquisition, on the ground that the sheriff did not personally preside, in view of the long-established practice in Baltimore city for the chief deputy to conduct proceedings of this nature.

aside or superseded if the party has been improperly found to be a lunatic. Alexander's Chancery Practice, 227, 238. The judgment of the court may be based upon depositions, or the respondent may be discharged after a personal examination. If the court is convinced of the party's sanity, it should not hesitate to supersede or set aside the inquisition. This procedure is independent of the right of the alleged lunatic to traverse the finding and to have the issue as to his sanity determined by a jury of the county upon a trial before the court. Id. The controlling question to be determined by the court, upon motion either to quash or to su

[1] The first question we have to determine is whether the decree confirming the inquisi-persede, is whether the person alleged to be tion can be reviewed by this court; a motion to dismiss the appeal having been filed on the theory that the action of the court below is final.

Section 107 of the Chancery article (16) of the Code provides: "The court shall have full power and authority, in all cases, to superintend and direct the affairs of persons non compotes mentis, both as to the care of their persons and the management of their estates, and may appoint a committee, or a trustee or trustees, for such persons, and may make such orders and decrees respecting their persons and estates as to the court may

of unsound mind is in fact incapable of managing his person or estate. A finding of insanity by the jury is advisory, and is a prerequisite to an adjudication by the court to that effect; but it is not conclusive as against the objection of the party protesting his competency and invoking the court's own judgment upon this vitally important question. We see no reason to doubt that a decree passed in the exercise of such a general authority and jurisdiction is a proper subject of review under the terms of the statute giving the right to any of the parties to a suit to appeal to this court from any final