Opinion
March 13, 1951. On Rehearing En Banc July 20, 1951.
Appeal from the Circuit Court for Palm Beach County, C.E. Chillingworth, J.
Howard M. Duncanson, Hollywood, James R. Knott and Paty, Warwick Paul and B.F. Paty, all of West Palm Beach, for appellant.
Wideman, Caldwell, Pacetti Robinson, West Palm Beach, and Smith, Ristig Smith, Washington, D.C., for appellees.
By bill in equity filed in the court below, appellant sought relief in the nature of specific performance of an oral agreement to execute a reciprocal will in favor of appellant and others. The action of the lower court in dismissing her bill upon the ground, among others, that the statute of non-claim was a bar to the suit, must be sustained. The statute, Section 733.16, Florida Statutes, same F.S.A., as amended by Chapter 22889, Laws of Florida, 1945, provides that "no cause of action, at law or in equity, * * * shall survive the death of the person against whom such claim may be made * * * unless such claim be filed in the manner and within the said eight months as aforesaid".
We think that the cause of action here involved was clearly within the intendment of the Legislature in enacting that portion of the statute above quoted, in accordance with its general policy of providing for the speedy settlement of estates.
There was no error in dismissing the bill, and the final decree appealed from is, accordingly,
Affirmed.
TERRELL, Acting Chief Justice, and CHAPMAN, ADAMS and ROBERTS, JJ., concur.
On Rehearing.
A rehearing having been granted in this cause and the case having been further considered upon the record and briefs and argument of counsel for the respective parties; it is thereupon ordered and adjudged by the Court and the Judgment of the Circuit Court in this cause be and it is hereby reaffirmed and adhered to on rehearing.
SEBRING, C.J., and THOMAS, HOBSON and ROBERTS, JJ., concur.
TERRELL, CHAPMAN and ADAMS, JJ., dissent.