Samuel Nelson

“ It is difficult to present a stronger case for the protection of a bona fide purchaser from loss, who has expended time and money in enhancing the value of the subject of the purchase, or a case in which the principle more justly applies, that where the true owner seeks the aid of a court of equity to enforce such a title, the court will administer that aid only when making compensation to the purchaser. We are, therefore, of opinion that the court below was right in allowing in the account the costs and fees paid to counsel by the executors in the defence of the suits. ”

“ The misapprehension as to the right cannot change the beneficial character of the expense, when indispensable to its security.
The duty of a trustee, whether of real or personal estate, to defend the title, at law or in equity, in case a suit is brought against it, is unquestioned, and the expenses are properly chargeable in his accounts against the estate. ”

“ In defending these proceeds, therefore, against suits instituted by third parties to recover them out of the hands of the executors, they have done no more nor less than they were bound to do, as the proper guardians of the fund, if they had known at the time the relation in which they stood to it, and that they were defending it for the benefit of the estate of Williams, and not for that of Oliver. The services rendered and expenses borne could not have been dispensed with, consistent with their duties as trustees. ”