Wilkins v. Ellett, Administrator

Quarles died in Alabama. Before his death, Quarles worked for a firm in Tennessee (defendant) where he left his excess wages to be invested. Letters of administration for Quarles’s estate were issued in Alabama and were taken by the Alabama administrator to Tennessee, where the Tennessee employer paid the amount due to Quarles. That amount was included in and accounted for in the Alabama administrator’s final account to the Alabama probate court. Quarles had no debts in Tennessee, and all of Quarles’s next of kin resided in Virginia or Alabama. Months later, a Virginia citizen took out letters for Quarles’s Tennessee estate and filed an action for assumpsit against Quarles’s Tennessee employer for the sum it paid to the Alabama administrator. Conflicting evidence was presented regarding whether Quarles’s domicile at death was in Alabama or Tennessee. The jury found that it was in Tennessee after being instructed that it would have to find for the Tennessee administrator if the jury found that Quarles was domiciled in Tennessee when he died. The Alabama administrator appealed and argued that the jury should have been instructed that the payment to the Alabama administrator made before the Tennessee administrator had been appointed and when there were Tennessee creditors was a valid discharge of the Tennessee employer’s debt to Quarles, without regard to Quarles’s domicile at death.