IN RE ENGER'S WILL
30 NW.2d 694 (1943)


PROCEDURAL POSTURE: Appellant trustee sought clarification of an opinion holding that an order allowing an account granted under Minn. Stat. § 501.35 upon notice and hearing had the same finality as a final judgment in an ordinary action.

FACTS: A statute made provision allowing the annual account of a trustee and to give mat account from the court proceedings the legal effect of a final judgment. Under these facts no objections were made to the annual account of mis trust but the proceedings were by default. The beneficiaries wanted to litigate claims against the trustee but the final order of the annual account stood in their way. The trial court vacated the prior orders in order to let the beneficiaries litigate the claims against self dealing against the trustee. This appeal resulted.

ISSUE: Is an annual account a final judgment such that it has the preclusive effect of res judicata if the matter being litigated is self dealing and no self dealing was disclosed in the annual account?

HOLDING: Proceeding in the matter of the trust created by the last will and testament of Bert J. Enger, decedent, wherein Arnold W. Leraan and Alfred Hoel, trustees, filed their final accounts to which Aftenro Society of Duluth and others, beneficiaries, filed objections. From an order vacating prior orders, the trustees appeal.
Order affirmed in part and appeal dismissed as to other parts of order.

RULE OF LAW: An annual account is not a final judgment such mat it has the preclusive effect of res judicata if the matter being litigated is self dealing and no self dealing was disclosed in the annual account.

ANALYSIS: A trustee sought clarification of the court's opinion on the finality of orders regarding instructions and construction of a trust instrument. The trustee urged that orders instructing a trustee or construing a trust instrument should be granted the same finality as orders allowing accounts. On petition for clarification, the court held that Minn. Stat. § 501.35 applied to orders that allowed accounts and not to other orders, such as those instructing on or construing a trust instrument. The orders allowing accounts were final under the statute upon notice and hearing. Other orders were governed by ordinary rules and were not final.