91-7-313 - Suit for devastavit.
§ 91-7-313. Suit for devastavit.
Parties interested in an estate as legatees, distributees, or creditors may, either jointly or severally, institute proceedings upon the bond of the executor or administrator or guardian for a devastavit against the principal and his surety without first having instituted suit against the executor or administrator or guardian to establish a devastavit. When any executor, administrator or guardian is a nonresident of, or shall absent himself from, or conceal himself within this state so that personal service of summons or citation or attachment cannot be made upon him, and such nonresident, absent or concealed executor, administrator, or guardian shall fail to file his accounts and make his settlements as required by law, or shall have unlawfully removed any of the property committed to his trust, or shall have been guilty of any misappropriation or devastavit, it shall be the duty of the court, on the motion of the clerk as elsewhere provided in this chapter, or on the motion of any party in interest, to proceed against the surety or sureties on the bond of said executor, administrator, or guardian, in respect to all of which matters the said surety or sureties shall be taken and held as principal. In proceeding as aforementioned, the default of the said executor, administrator, or guardian in failing to file and settle his accounts as required by law shall be taken as prima facie evidence that the said defaulter has misappropriated the money or property, or both, which may be disclosed by the inventory, appraisement, or by any other of the official papers in the case, or which may be shown by competent evidence outside of said record, to have come into the possession of said defaulter.
Sources: Codes, Hutchinson's 1848, ch. 49, art. 12 (4); 1857, ch. 60, art. 123; 1871, § 1180; 1880, § 2084; 1892, § 1855; 1906, § 2030; Hemingway's 1917, § 1695; 1930, § 1746; 1942, § 648.