The amount of the estate, as a whole, was the matter in dispute
below, and it amounted to sufficient to give this Court
jurisdiction.
The sovereignty of the State of Georgia and the jurisdiction of
its courts at the time of the grant of letters of administration on
the estate of Haralson did not extend to or embrace the assets of
the decedent situated within the territorial jurisdiction of the
District of Columbia, and while the De Kalb County Court possessed
the power to determine the question of the domicil of the decedent
for the purpose of conclusively adjudicating the validity within
the Georgia of a grant of letters of administration, it did not
possess the power to conclusively bind all the world as to the fact
of domicil by a mere finding of such fact in a proceeding
in
rem.
Pending proceedings for the appointment of an administrator in
the District of Columbia, the personal assets of the deceased there
situated were delivered up to the administrator appointed by the
Georgia court. The trial court declined to rule that their delivery
operated to protect those who made it as against an administrator
appointed within the District.
Held that this was a proper
ruling.
The Act of Congress of February 28, 1887, c. 281, has no
relation to a case of this kind.
The proceedings under review originated in the Supreme Court of
the District of Columbia by the filing in that court, on January
23, 1896, of a petition on behalf of Mrs. Gordon, the appellee
herein. The object of the petition was to obtain the probate, as
the last will and testament of Hugh A. Haralson, of a paper
purporting to have been executed by Haralson, a copy of which is
set out in the margin hereof,
* and to
obtain
Page 177 U. S. 215
a grant of letters of administration thereon with the will
annexed. It was averred that Haralson, at the time of his death and
for several years prior thereto, had been a resident of the
District of Columbia, and that he died on August 23, 1895, in the
County of De Kalb, State of Georgia, possessed of personal property
of the value of about $10,000 all of which, except an insignificant
part thereof, was at the time in the District of Columbia. It was
further averred that Haralson left surviving, as next of kin, three
sisters, and four children of a deceased sister, and that all said
next of King, except the eldest sister (Elizabeth S. Overby),
resided in the State of Georgia. Subsequently, on March 6, 1896, a
caveat was filed purporting in the body thereof to be on behalf of
all the next of kin of the decedent other than Mrs. Gordon, but not
signed by Mrs. Overby, contesting the validity of the alleged will
and the claim that the deceased was at the time of his death a
resident of the District of Columbia, and averring that, at the
time of his death, Haralson was a citizen and resident of the State
of Georgia.
On April 10, 1896, issues were framed upon the matters put at
issue by the caveat, and were ordered to be tried by the court,
sitting as a circuit court, and a jury. The questions presented for
decision were as follows:
"1. Was the said deceased at the time of his death a resident of
the District of Columbia?"
"2. Was the said deceased at the time of his death a citizen and
resident of the State of Georgia?"
"3. Was the said deceased at the time of the making of the paper
writing purporting to be his last will and testament a resident of
the District of Columbia?"
"4. Was the said deceased, at the time of the making of the
paper writing purporting to be his last will and testament, a
citizen and resident of the State of Georgia?"
"5. At the time of his death, did any considerable part of
Page 177 U. S. 216
the personal estate of the said deceased lie within the District
of Columbia?"
A trial of these issues, however, was not had until February,
1898. At said trial, the caveators were represented by attorneys.
From a bill of exceptions contained in the record before us, it
appears that Mrs. Gordon introduced evidence tending to show that
both at the date of the testamentary paper in controversy and at
the time of his death, Haralson was a resident of the District of
Columbia. Mrs. Gordon rested her case after the following
admissions were made by counsel for caveators:
1. That, at his death, Haralson had on deposit in two banking
institutions in the District of Columbia money and securities
approximating $9,000 in amount and value, which was the entire
estate of the decedent, with the exception of about $200 found
outside of said District; and
2. That said assets within the District of Columbia had been
removed therefrom by Logan Bleckley (one of the caveators),
claiming to act as administrator of the estate of said decedent,
under grant of letters issued in May, 1896, by a court of the State
of Georgia, pursuant to proceedings initiated in said court on
April 6, 1896.
It is recited in the bill of exceptions that "to sustain the
issues on their part joined," the caveators offered in evidence a
certified transcript of record from the De Kalb Court of Ordinary,
De Kalb County, in the State of Georgia. This record showed the
appointment in May, 1896, of Logan Bleckley as administrator.
It is further recited in the bill of exceptions that the
transcript referred to was offered as tending to show that the
decedent had died a resident of De Kalb County, Georgia, intestate,
"and that Mrs. Gordon was thereby estopped to deny that fact." The
trial court, however, refused to admit the record in evidence, and
an exception was duly taken to such refusal. The jury answered
"Yes" to the first, third, and fifth questions submitted to them,
and "No" to the second and fourth questions, thus sustaining the
contentions of Mrs. Gordon. The answers were certified to the
orphans' court, and thereupon an order was entered admitting the
will
Page 177 U. S. 217
to probate and record as the last will and testament of the
decedent, and letters of administration
cum testamento
annexo were decreed to issue to Hugh H. Gordon, a son of the
petitioner. An appeal was thereupon taken by the caveators to the
Court of Appeals of the District of Columbia. That court affirmed
the order of the lower court (Mr. Chief Justice Alvey dissenting)
(13 App.D.C. 392), and a writ of error was then sued out from this
Court.
MR. JUSTICE WHITE, after making the foregoing statement,
delivered the opinion of the Court.
Counsel for defendant in error urge in their brief an objection
to the jurisdiction of this Court, which we shall first consider
and dispose of.
It is claimed that the writ of error should be dismissed
"because the interests of the plaintiffs in error in respect of
the judgment of the Court of Appeals of the District of Columbia,
to which said writ of error was directed, are several, and the
matter in dispute, exclusive of costs, as to no one of the said
plaintiffs in error, exceeds the sum or value of five thousand
dollars."
By Act of February 9, 1893, 27 Stat. 436, c. 74, this Court was
authorized, among other things, to review a final judgment or
decree of the Court of Appeals of the District of Columbia in any
case where the matter in dispute, exclusive of costs, shall exceed
the sum of five thousand dollars. What, therefore, was the matter
in dispute in this controversy? The answer manifestly is that it
was whether an estate valued at more than nine thousand dollars
should pass in the mode provided in an alleged last will and
testament, which in effect excluded the next of kin of the decedent
from the enjoyment of the principal of the
Page 177 U. S. 218
estate, or in the mode provided by the law of the domicil of the
decedent for the transmission of an intestate estate. On the one
hand was Mrs. Gordon, a sister of the deceased, and representing
the interests under the alleged last will, asserting the validity
of that document, and opposed to her were the plaintiffs in error,
some of the next of kin of the deceased, interested in establishing
his intestacy. Had the trial court admitted in evidence the
transcript of record from the De Kalb court and given it the
conclusive force contended for, it would seem beyond question that
as to those interested in upholding the validity of the alleged
will, the value of the estate affected by that instrument would
have been the matter in dispute. The matter in dispute necessarily
must be the same as to the unsuccessful next of kin who are
prosecuting this writ of error, and the amount of whose several
interests in the estate of the decedent was not a question
litigated below. The case is analogous in principle to that of
Shields v.
Thomas, 17 How. 3. In that case it was held that
where the representatives of a deceased intestate recovered a
judgment against an administrator for an amount in excess of the
sum necessary to confer jurisdiction to review, and such recovery
was had under the same title and for a common and undivided
interest, this Court had jurisdiction although the amount decreed
to be distributed to each representative was less than the
jurisdictional sum. In the case at bar, the contestants below
sought not an allotment to them of their interests, if any, in the
estate, but an adjudication that the alleged last will and
testament possessed no validity, and that contention was advanced
by virtue of a claim of common title in the next of kin of the
decedent to the corpus of the estate, such title, if any, being
derived from the law of the alleged domicil of the deceased. In
this aspect, the amount of the estate was the matter in dispute.
New Orleans Pacific Railway v. Parker, 143 U. S.
42,
143 U. S. 51-52,
and cases there cited. There is therefore no merit in the objection
to the exercise of jurisdiction.
Coming, then, to the merits of the controversy, we find
presented for our consideration the single question was the grant
of letters of administration by the Court of Ordinary of De
Kalb
Page 177 U. S. 219
County, Georgia, competent evidence upon the issue tried in the
Supreme Court of the District of Columbia respecting the domicil of
the decedent at the time of his death?
In determining this question, it is important to keep in mind
the following facts:
At the time when the proceedings before the De Kalb court were
instituted (April, 1896), the estate of the deceased, with but a
trifling exception, was within the District of Columbia. Not only
this, but upon the ground that the domicil of Haralson at his death
was the District of Columbia, the jurisdiction of a competent court
of the District had been invoked as early as January 23, 1896, for
the probate of an alleged last will and testament of Haralson and
for the grant of letters of administration
cum testamento
annexo, and on March 6, 1896, the next of kin, other than the
proponent of the alleged will, had filed a caveat in said court of
the District of Columbia contesting the application for probate and
grant of letters. Four days before the certification of issues
framed by reason of such contest, to be tried before a jury, the
caveators before the Supreme Court of the District of Columbia
initiated the proceedings before the De Kalb County Court. It was
upon the hearing had in the Supreme Court of the District of
Columbia upon the issues certified on April 10, 1896, that the
adjudication of the De Kalb County Court was offered in evidence
upon the issue in respect to the domicil of the decedent at his
death.
The transcript of record exhibiting such adjudication consists
of (1) an unverified petition of Logan Bleckley, as one of the next
of kin and heirs at law of Hugh A. Haralson, asking that letters of
administration be granted upon the estate of said deceased, upon
the ground that he was a resident of the County of De Kalb at his
death, and had died intestate, "leaving an estate, undevised, of
real and personal property of the probable value of $10,000," (2)
consents of certain of the next of kin to the appointment of
Bleckley, (3) the order of appointment, and, (4) the oath of office
of the administrator, in which is embodied an averment that the
decedent died intestate, so far as affiant knew or believed.
By section 3393 of the Georgia Code of 1895, an application
Page 177 U. S. 220
for grant of letters of administration was required to be made
to the ordinary of the County of the residence of the deceased, if
a resident of the state, and if not a resident, then in some county
where the estate or a portion thereof was situated.
The next section, prescribing the notice to be given of an
application, reads as follows:
"SEC. 3394 (2503).
The citation. The ordinary must
issue a citation, giving notice of the application to all
concerned, in the gazette in which the county advertisements are
usually published, once a week for four weeks, and at the first
regular term after the expiration of that time the application
should be heard or regularly continued."
The order of appointment is recited to have been made at the May
term, 1896. It reads as follows:
"The petition of Logan Bleckley for letters of administration on
the estate of Hugh A. Haralson, deceased, having been duly filed,
and it appearing that citation therein was issued and published
according to law, requiring all concerned to appear at this term
and show cause, if any they could, why said letters should not be
granted, and it also appearing that said deceased died a resident
of said county intestate, and that said applicant is a citizen of
this state and lawfully qualified for said administration, and no
objection being offered thereto, it is therefore ordered by the
court that the said Logan Bleckley be, and he is hereby, appointed
administrator on the estate of said deceased, and that letters
issue to him as such, upon his giving bond, with approved security,
in the sum of twenty thousand dollars, and taking and subscribing
the oath as provided by law."
As said by this Court in
Veach v. Rice, 131 U.
S. 293, courts of ordinary in Georgia are courts of
record, having exclusive and general jurisdiction over the estates
of decedents, and no question has been raised as to the observance
of the requirements of the statutes of Georgia in the proceedings
which culminated in the appointment of the Georgia
administrator.
The transcript referred to, however, undoubtedly only justifies
the inference that none other than the statutory notice by
publication was given, and that no contest was had in respect to
the grant of letters.
Page 177 U. S. 221
Jurisdiction is the right to hear and decide, and it must be
exercised, speaking in a broad sense, in one of two modes -- either
in rem or
in personam.
It will be observed that the statutory notice above referred to
was not required to be directed against named individuals, nor had
it for its object the obtaining of specific relief against anyone,
but it was to be general, and its purpose was to warn all persons
that it was proposed by the court of ordinary to determine whether
a legal representative should be appointed to administer the
property of the deceased within the State of Georgia. The notice
and proceeding was obviously intended to have no greater force or
efficacy against persons resident in the State of Georgia than
against individuals who might be resident without the state. It
results that the proceedings referred to were not intended to
constitute, and did not amount to, an action
in personam.
This results from the fact that they were devoid of the elements
essential to an action
in personam, and, if not
proceedings purely
in rem, they possessed so much of the
characteristics thereof as not to warrant the allowance of greater
efficacy than is accorded to a proceeding of that nature.
An essential characteristic, however, of a proceeding
in
rem is that there must be a
res or subject matter
upon which the court is to exercise its jurisdiction. In cases
purely
in rem, as in admiralty and revenue cases for the
condemnation or forfeiture of specific property, a preliminary
seizure of the property is necessary to the power of the court to
adjudicate at all. In other cases, where the proceedings are in
form
in personam but the court is unable to acquire
jurisdiction of the person of the defendant by actual or
constructive service of process, the action may proceed as one
in rem against the property of which a preliminary seizure
or its equivalent has been made, or jurisdiction may be exercised
without such preliminary seizure where the relief sought is an
adjudication respecting the title to or validity of alleged liens
upon real estate situate within the jurisdiction of the court.
Roller v. Holly, 176 U. S. 398. To
the class of cases where the proceedings are in form
in
rem may be added those connected with the grant of letters
either testamentary or of administration.
Page 177 U. S. 222
From the record of the proceedings instituted in the De Kalb
County Court, it is apparent that the ultimate purpose was to
adjudicate upon and decree distribution of the estate of the
deceased, the appointment of an administrator being a mere
preliminary step in the management and control by the court of
assets of the estate. The question of domicil would seem to have
been important only as establishing the particular court of
ordinary which was vested with jurisdiction to administer the
assets within the State of Georgia. The subject matter or
res, upon which the power of the court was to be
exercised, was therefore the estate of the decedent.
The sovereignty of the State of Georgia and the jurisdiction of
its courts, however, did not extend to and embrace property not
situated within the territorial jurisdiction of the state. To quote
the language of Mr. Chief Justice Marshall in
Rose v.
Himely, 4 Cranch 277:
"It is repugnant to every idea of a proceeding
in rem
to act against a thing which is not in the power of the sovereign
under whose authority the court proceeds, and no nation will admit
that its property should be absolutely changed, while remaining in
its own possession, by a sentence which is entirely
ex
parte."
As said also in
Pennoyer v. Neff, 95 U.
S. 722:
"Except as restrained and limited by . . . [the Constitution,
the several states of the Union] possess and exercise the authority
of independent states, and . . . [two well established] principles
of public law . . . [respecting the jurisdiction of an independent
state over persons and property] are applicable to them. One of
these principles is that every state possesses exclusive
jurisdiction and sovereignty over persons and property within its
territory. . . ."
"The other principle of public law referred to follows from the
one mentioned -- that is that no state can exercise direct
jurisdiction and authority over persons or property without its
territory. Story, Confl.Laws, c. 2; Wheat.Int.Law, pt. 2, c. 2. The
several states are of equal dignity and authority, and the
independence of one implies the exclusion of power from all others.
And so it is laid down by jurists as an elementary principle that
the laws of one state have no operation outside
Page 177 U. S. 223
of its territory except so far as is allowed by comity, and that
no tribunal established by it can extend its process beyond that
territory so as to subject either persons or property to its
decisions. 'Any exertion of authority of this sort beyond this
limit,' says Story, 'is a mere nullity, and incapable of binding
such persons or property in any other tribunals.' Story,
Confl.Laws, sec. 539."
Now it is undeniable that the sovereignty of the State of
Georgia and the jurisdiction of its courts at the time of the
adjudication by the De Kalb County Court, by the grant of letters
of administration on the estate of Haralson, did not extend to or
embrace the assets of the decedent situated within the territorial
jurisdiction of the District of Columbia, and, viewed as a step in
a proceeding
in rem relating to property within the
jurisdiction of the court, the adjudication of a grant of letters
would have no binding probative force in contests respecting
property lying outside of the territorial dominion of the State of
Georgia. The decision in
Robertson v. Pickrell,
109 U. S. 608, and
in the cases there relied upon, furnish illustrations of this
principle. Thus, in the case just named, it was held that the act
of Congress declaring the force and efficacy which the records and
judicial proceedings of one state should have in the courts of
another state did not require that they should have any greater
force and effect in another state than in the state where such
records and judicial proceedings originated and were had; that the
probate of a will in one state, by a proceeding not adversary in
character, merely established its sufficiency to pass all property
which could be transferred in that state by a valid instrument of
that kind, and the validity of the will in that state, and that
such probate did not conduce to establish the facts upon which the
probate proceeded, in proceedings respecting real property situated
in another state, except as permitted by the laws of such other
state.
The reasoning upon which we base the conclusion that the
transcript of record of the grant of letters by the De Kalb County
Court was not entitled to probative force in the courts of another
state in a controversy over the administration of assets not within
the territorial jurisdiction of the State of Georgia
Page 177 U. S. 224
at the time the grant of letters was made finds support in the
opinion delivered by Lord Blackburn in
Concha v. Concha,
L.R. 11 App.Cas. p. 541, a case referred to in terms of approval in
Thormann v. Frame, 176 U. S. 350,
where was involved a controversy in some of its features analogous
to that presented in the case at bar. The facts in the
Concha case were as follows:
After contest between a daughter of a decedent and the executors
named in a document which purported to be a last will and
testament, the paper was admitted to probate by a judge of a
probate court in London, and he expressly decided, upon an issue
framed in a contest between the daughter and executors as to the
domicil of the decedent, in favor of the domicil being in England,
and not in Chili, as was claimed by the daughter. In a subsequent
action before the Court of Chancery for distribution of the assets,
the daughter again sought to litigate the question as to the
domicil of her father, and her right to do so was finally
adjudicated by the House of Lords. The executors, or those who had
succeeded them in the management of the administration suit,
attempted to avail of the decree of the probate court as conclusive
upon the question of domicil, first as a proceeding
in rem
which operated an estoppel against all the world, and second as a
proceeding
inter partes, operative as
res
judicata by reason of the actual contest made by the daughter.
The decree of the probate court, however, was held not conclusive
in rem as to the domicil, because the finding as to
domicil was not necessary to the decree of the judge of probate,
nor conclusive
inter partes, as the pending controversy
was substantially between the daughter and the residuary legatee,
and as the latter could not be bound by an adjudication upon a
question not necessary to be litigated in the probate court, and as
estoppels must be mutual, the daughter could not be bound. This
decision of the House of Lords, it will be borne in mind, was as to
the effect to be given in one judicial tribunal in England to the
decision of another court of the same country. In the course of his
opinion, Lord Blackburn (who perhaps had in mind doubts intimated
in the Court of Appeals, 29 Ch.Div. p. 276, as to whether the
findings on which a judgment
in rem is based are in all
cases conclusive against the world) said (p. 562):
Page 177 U. S. 225
"What he [the probate judge] did decide was (and to that extent,
I think the decision was conclusive on everybody) that there was an
executor who was entitled to have probate in England for the
purpose of getting in and taking the property which was in England,
and to that he was entitled if there was a will which made that
executor a good executor according to the law of England; but I do
not think that Sir Cresswell Cresswell had any power to say that
the testator was or was not really a domiciled Englishman. If he
had been a domiciled American or domiciled in any other country, I
do not think that a decision of the judge of our probate court,
saying 'I find him to be a domiciled Englishman, and therefore on
that account grant probate' would be at all conclusive upon the
court of another country to oblige them to admit that he was a
domiciled Englishman, when in fact he was not; or, putting it the
converse way, that if a Chilian court had chosen to say that some
very wealthy man was a domiciled Chilian, and had therefore granted
probate, the law of nations would require that to conclude any
person from saying in this country that he was not so."
Again, after referring to the fact that upon the executor's
proposing to prove the will, a caveat was entered upon which it was
said the probate judge entered into an inquiry whether or not the
testator was domiciled in England, and found that he was, Lord
Blackburn observed (p. 564):
"It is said that upon the caveat in the suit, an order was drawn
up, which may perhaps not mean that, but which does look extremely
as if the registrar entered the judgment that the judge did find
it. I cannot think that if he had done that, it would have bound
everybody universally as being a judgment
in rem. I have
instanced a sort of illustration of it. Supposing he had done so,
and supposing that he was wrong, and the fact was that the testator
had not been really domiciled in England, but had been domiciled,
say in the United States, in New York, we will suppose, could it
possibly have been said that the court of New York (which
undoubtedly would have the same general law of nations as we have,
following the law of the domicil to distribute the property) would
have respected the decision of the judge ordinary, it establishing
that this
Page 177 U. S. 226
will was proved conclusively as being enough to make this person
executor and the representative in England to obtain the English
property -- could it have been said that the judge ordinary having
erroneously found that the testator was domiciled in England when
in fact he was a domiciled citizen of the United States, it was to
conclude them and conclude everybody to the fact that he was a
domiciled Englishman until a foreigner had come to the court of
this country to obtain a reversal? I cannot think so. If that was
so, how could it as a matter
in rem be decisive as regards
the reason upon which the judge of the probate court had gone? I
cannot think that it would be."
In
Blackburn v.
Crawford, 3 Wall. 175, and a continuation of the
same action under the title of
Kearney v.
Denn, 15 Wall. 51, the sole question at issue in
the action (ejectment) was the validity of an asserted marriage. At
the trial, the defendant offered in evidence, as a conclusive
estoppel against all the lessors of the plaintiff and as
prima
facie evidence to support the issue on his part, a transcript
from the records of the Orphans' Court of Prince George's County,
Maryland, and proposed to read therefrom the verdict of the jury
and the order of the orphans' court thereon on certain issues sent
from the orphans' court to the circuit court of said county. These
issues had been framed upon a contest, initiated in the orphans'
court by one of the lessors of the plaintiff who resisted an
application of Blackburn for the grant to him of letters of
administration on the estate of a certain intestate, such lessor
asserting that he was nearest of kin to the intestate and that
letters should be granted to him. The verdict in the contest was
against the validity of the claimed marriage. On the trial in the
action in ejectment, the jury found in favor of the fact of
marriage. This Court -- the trial judge in the action in ejectment
having excluded the transcript referred to -- held that the decree
upon the contest was competent evidence, and operated an estoppel
as against the lessor of the plaintiff who was a party to the
contest, but that the adjudication did not affect the other
lessors, who were not parties to such contest. Obviously, the
decision proceeded upon the assumption that, as the orphans' court
possessed no general jurisdiction over the real
Page 177 U. S. 227
estate of a decedent, its action upon the application for grant
of letters, regarded as a proceeding
in rem, possessed no
probative force in contests over such property. This, of course, in
no wise impugned the principle that all parties to a contest, in
proceedings in a probate court preliminary to and during the course
of administration upon the estate of the decedent upon a matter
within the jurisdiction of the court, are concluded in every other
court by the decision rendered, as to the facts upon which such
decision necessarily proceeded.
Caujolle
v. Ferrie, 13 Wall. 465.
And see Butterfield v.
Smith, 101 U. S. 570.
We are of the opinion that the De Kalb County Court possessed
the power to determine the question of domicil of the decedent for
the purpose of conclusively adjudicating the validity within the
State of Georgia of a grant of letters of administration, but that
it did not possess the power to conclusively bind all the world as
to the fact of domicil by a mere finding of such fact in a
proceeding
in rem. In other words, proceedings which were
substantially
ex parte cannot be allowed to have greater
efficacy than would a solemn contest
inter partes, which
would have estopped only actual parties to such contest as to facts
which had been or might have been litigated in such contest.
Our conclusion being that the adjudication of the fact of
domicil in Georgia made in the grant of letters by the De Kalb
County Court, and which was not made in a contest inter partes, was
of no probative force upon the question of domicil in a contest in
a court of the District of Columbia in the course of proceedings
for the administration of assets within said District, it results
that the Supreme Court of the District did not err in excluding the
transcript in question, whether tendered as evidence conducing to
establish or as conclusively fixing the domicil of the deceased.
And this conclusion is not affected in the least by the
circumstance that, on the trial of the issue as to domicil had in
the Supreme Court of the District of Columbia, it was claimed that
the assets within the District of Columbia at the time of the
filing of the caveat by the next of kin had been surreptitiously
removed from the District of Columbia by one of the caveators.
Page 177 U. S. 228
The trial court properly declined to rule that delivery of such
assets operated to protect those who made the surrender, as against
an administrator appointed within the District, subsequent, it is
true, to such delivery, but as the result of proceedings for the
appointment of an administrator which were pending in a proper
court of the District at the time of the delivery and when the
person in whose name the Georgia letters were issued was a party to
the proceedings previously instituted and then pending in the
District. Nor was the trial court required to determine that, upon
proper application to the Georgia court, the administrator
appointed by the court would not be ordered to deliver up the
assets removed by him from the District.
Allusion has been made to an Act of Congress of February 28,
1887, 24 Stat. 431, which makes it lawful for any person or persons
to whom letters testamentary or of administration may be granted by
proper authority, in any of the United States or the territories
thereof, to maintain any suit or action and to prosecute and
recover any claim in the District of Columbia in the same manner as
if the letters testamentary or of administration had been granted
to such person or persons by the proper authority in the said
District. We do not construe that statute, however, as having any
relation to a case of the kind we are now considering. In other
words, the statute cannot in reason be interpreted as directing
that where a proper court of the District of Columbia had obtained
jurisdiction by proceedings commenced before it for administration
upon property within the District, it should be obliged to dismiss
such proceedings because one who was a party before it chose,
whilst issues in such proceedings were pending and undecided, to go
to a state and there make application for letters of
administration, basing such application upon the asserted fact that
the deceased had been domiciled in such state.
Whilst it may be conceded that, in consequence of the statute,
as a general rule, a debtor residing in the District of Columbia,
of a deceased person, may be protected in making payment to an
administrator appointed in another jurisdiction, the asserted
domicil of the deceased,
Wilkins v. Ellett, 108 U.
S. 256, this does not make it necessary for us to decide
that the payment
Page 177 U. S. 229
or delivery of the assets in the District of Columbia, which was
made to the Georgia administrator after the commencement of
proceedings for the administration of the assets within the
District of Columbia, based upon the ground of the domicil of the
deceased having been in said District, was lawful. To determine
this question would involve a consideration of other provisions of
the statute, and as to whether the person making the payment was or
was not to be charged with notice of the then pending proceedings
in the Supreme Court of the District, which, of course, were matter
of public record. The question, however, is not before us for
review, and we do not therefore express an opinion in regard
thereto.
Further, in the light of the decision of the Supreme Court of
Georgia in the case of
Thomas v. Morrisett, 76 Ga. 384,
and an analogous decision by the Supreme Court of errors of
Connecticut in
Willett's Appeal from Probate, 50 Conn.
330, it would seem altogether probable that the De Kalb County
Court, upon application made to it, will order its appointee to
surrender to the administrator appointed in the District of
Columbia the assets which were by the former removed from the
District during the pendency therein of the proceedings for
administration.
Finding no error in the record, the judgment of the Court of
Appeals of the District of Columbia is
Affirmed.
MR. JUSTICE BROWN concurs in the result.
*
"Savannah, Ga. August 14, 1895"
"It is my will and desire that, after my death, the interest on
my bonds be for the sole use and benefit of my sister Mrs. Fannie
Gordon, and that, after her death, the interest on my bonds be for
the sole use and benefit of her daughter and my niece, Carrie Lewis
Gordon."
"It is my will and desire that none of my securities be sold or
the investment changed until they mature."
"If Carrie Gordon should have no children at her death, these
securities, with the residue of my estate, to be divided to my
heirs at law."
"Hugh Haralson"
"Witness: Chas. A. Macatee"