Majority
p. 12In the Matter of the Final Accounting of Robert C. Reeves, Executor, etc., of the Estate of Abraham Denike, Deceased. (Supreme Court, General Term, First Department, Filed May 18, 1888.)
Headnote
Surrogate—Power to order attorney to submit to a cross-examination AS TO ITEMS IN HIS BILL OF COSTS.The surrogate has power to order the attorney for an executor to appear and submit to a cross-examination as to the items of his bill of costs on an accounting.
Appeal by the executor from the summons or direction of the surrogate requiring him to appear and. submit to a cross-examination as to the items of his ' bill of costs.
Henry W. Bates, for app’lt; J. H. Morris, for the residuary legatees, etc.
In the bill of costs of the attorney and counsel for the executor, he has charged for one hundred and six days less two and adjournments, not specified, for time occupied in the trial or hearing upon the settle-
p. 13
meat of the executors accounts, in preparing such accounts and preparing for the trial or hearing. The estate was neither large nor complicated, and these charges must necessarily have excited the suspicion and incredulity of the surrogate. Whether they should be allowed or not to a very great extent depended upon the exercise of his discretion as that has been regulated under section 2561-2 of the Code of Civil Procedure, and to guide him judicially in the exercise of that authority he required information which could naturally be obtained, if it was accessible, from the attorney, concerning the foundation and justice of these charges. He might in his discretion have disallowed them entirely, so far as no absolute legal right existed for sustaining them, or he might to secure additional information have required a minute and circumstantial affidavit from the attorney, and in the judicious exercise of the same authority, no good reason seems to stand in the way to prevent the surrogate from requiring the attorney, as he did, to appear and submit to an oral examination concerning the correctness and justice of these charges. The information to guide the judgment of the surrogate appeared to be necessary under the circumstances and in the discharge of his duties he had the right and authority to require its production in one form or another, and it was for him to determine and decide which would be the most satisfactory or best furnish the information it was necessary to obtain. He adopted the course of requiring the attorney to appear and submit to an oral examination concerning these charges.. Ho possible injustice could be done to the attorney by prescribing that course. On the contrary if the charges are just it afforded him the means of exhibiting them to be of that description. It was in his interest as much as that of the estate, that the summons or the order was made by the surrogate, and ample incidental authority exists in that officer to require as much as this of the attorney-counsel claiming these allowances. Without therefore considering this was such an order as the executor could appeal from, it is sufficient to say that it was rightly made and it should be affirmed with ten dollars costs, to be paid by the executor and the attorney personally.
Van Brunt, P. J., and Bartlett, J., concur.