Eleven Antcliffe Law Suits

i lie cases arising out of the settlement of the estáte of John Antcliffe, late of Manchester township, bid fair to make the estáte a memorable one, especially to the lawyers lucky enough to get a hand in the case, as residuary legatees, as one put it. There are at present one case in the probate court nine in the circuit court, and one in the supreme court, a total of eleven cases. There are six lawyers employed in the settlement. John Antcliffe, it will be ed, late in life secured a widow for a wife, some years younger than himself. He was sued by Eandy June, of Jackson county,for a marriage brokers' commission for securing him a wife. Tuis suit carne near causing the disbarment of Reed Crowell, a lawyer of Brooklyn, Jackson couuty. Antcliffe was an Englishman, pretty well beeled, and when he died, he left an estáte which inventoried at $25,000. ïwo executors were appointed, James Kelly and Mis. Antcliffe, who gave seperate bonds. There was some trouble between the executors which occupied the attention of the probate court. Later, Mrs. Antcliffe died, having in her possession at the time of her death about $9,000 of personal property of the John Antcliffe estáte. When her executors eame into court to account, the court ordered theru to pay over to Mr. Kelly the moneys and property of the John Antcliffe estáte. They paid over the notes and mortgages, but retained about $2.300 in money. In January last the probate court ordered the payment of 60 per cent. of all the claims of the Antcliffe estáte allowed by the commissioners which had not been appealed. A. J. Waters, executor of the Mrs. Antcliffe estáte, held about $3,000 of these claims. He tendered Kelly receipts for 50 per cent , which Kelly refused to take, and paid $700 or $800 into the probate court. Kelly applied for leave to sue on Mrs. Antcliffe's bond to recover the $2,300. This' motion was heard in the probate court this week, the lawyers citing about a hundred different law books. In the meantime various other cases had arisen. The principal claimants against the estáte of John Antcliffe were seven of his brothers and sisters, who clairned that when their father came over from England, in 1863 or '64, he brought over 500 English sovereigns which, as gold was then very high, were worth $10 each in currency. He let John have these sovereigns as being the oldest of the family and the only real estáte owner aniong tliem, the money to bè divided, after his and his wife's death, among the children. The seven heirs pat in claims of $3,500 each which were allowed by the commissioners at $2,023 each. Mr. Case, the son of Mrs, Antcliffe by a former marriage, and consequently the heir of herestate, appealed six of these cases to the circuit court, where these six cases are now pending. The lawyers for the clairuant moved the court to dismiss one of these cases, on the grouod that Mr. Case had no right under the statute to appeal, and this motion being denied, have appealed to the supreme court for a mandamus to compelí the dismissal of the case. But this is not all the litigation arising from the estáte. Before the commissioners in the John Antcliffe estáte, A. J. Waters put in a claim for $18 for fees in attending to a case in a northern court. The estáte put in an jffset of $100, and the commissioners alowed the offset. Waters appealed to the circuit court. Executor Kelly made his annual accounting in the probate court last January, and executor Waters, of the Mrs. Antcliffe estáte, appealed from its allowance. On January 24, the probate court ordered Mr. Kelly to pay fifty per cent. of the claims against the estáte, which had been allowed but not appealed from. Mr. Kelly appealed to the circuit court from this order. As will be noticed the litigation has" just fairly commenced.