It is a doctrine firmly established that the law of a state in
which land is situated controls and governs its transmission by
will or its passage in case of intestacy.
The courts of a state where real estate is situated have the
exclusive right to appoint a guardian, of a nonresident minor, and
vest in such guardian the exclusive control and management of land
belonging to said minor situated within the state.
This writ of error was procured for the purpose of obtaining the
reversal of a judgment of the Supreme Court of Errors of the State
of Connecticut which, as respected real estate situated in the
State of Connecticut, refused to follow and apply a judgment of the
Supreme Court of South Carolina interpreting and construing the
will of Julia H. Clarke.
The facts from which the legal questions presented arise are as
follows:
Henry P. Clarke and Julia Hurd intermarried in New York in 1886,
and immediately thereafter went to South Carolina, where they
afterwards continuously resided. Mrs. Clarke died on February 10,
1894, owning real and personal property in South Carolina, and also
real estate situated in Connecticut. Two daughters survived, one
Nancy B., aged five years, the other, Julia, aged about two
months
Page 178 U. S. 187
A will and codicil executed by Mrs. Clarke were duly established
in the Court of Probate for Richland County, in the State of South
Carolina. The will contained the following provisions:
"Fifth. The rest, residue, and remainder of my estate, real and
personal, of whatever description or wheresoever situated, I give,
devise, and bequeath as follows: one-half thereof to my husband,
Henry P. Clarke, and one-half thereof to my said husband in trust
for my daughter, Nancy, until she becomes twenty-five years of age,
and then to pay the whole sum over to her. But if she shall marry
before that age with the consent and approval of her father, or, in
case of his death, with the consent and approval of her then
guardian, then I direct that one-half of her share shall be paid to
her upon her marriage and the other half when she becomes
twenty-five."
"In case I shall leave surviving me one or more children beside
my daughter Nancy, then I direct that the said rest, residue, and
remainder of my estate shall be divided equally among my said
husband and all of my children, share and share alike, my husband
and my children sharing per capita, and the shares of said children
to be held in trust as above provided in the case of Nancy as being
the only one."
"And I give, devise, and bequeath the said rest, residue, and
remainder as aforesaid to each and to their heirs and each of them
forever."
The infant daughter Julia died shortly after her mother, in the
month of May, 1894, owning no property in Connecticut except such
as had devolved on her under the will of her mother.
Henry P. Clarke, as executor of the last will and testament of
his wife, Julia H. Clarke, and trustee of the estate of Nancy B.
Clarke, his infant daughter, brought suit in June, 1895, against
said Nancy B. Clarke, in the Circuit Court for the Fifth Judicial
Circuit of South Carolina, praying for the
"judgment and direction of the court in regard to the true
construction of said will, and especially the fifth and residuary
paragraph thereof, and as to his powers and duties as such executor
and trustee under said will in the premises and for such further
relief as may be just and proper. "
Page 178 U. S. 188
A guardian
ad litem was appointed for the infant
defendant, who duly answered, and, after hearing, the court decreed
that the will of the testatrix, Julia H. Clarke, worked an
equitable conversion into personalty at the time of her death of
all her real estate of whatsoever description and wheresoever
situated; that the plaintiff as executor should receive,
administer, and account for the same as personalty; that he was by
the said will authorized and empowered to sell and convey the same
for the purpose of executing the will, and leave was given to apply
for further orders and directions upon the foot of the decree. This
judgment was, upon appeal, affirmed by the Supreme Court of South
Carolina. 46 S.C. 230.
The controversy in the courts of Connecticut was commenced by
the filing in the Probate Court for the District of Bridgeport of a
petition on behalf of Henry P. Clarke as administrator of the
estate of his deceased daughter Julia Clarke, he having been
appointed such administrator by the proper court in Connecticut. In
the petition, it was recited that Julia had died intestate, leaving
real estate in the district, and that divers persons claimed to be
entitled to have the said real estate set apart and distributed to
them, and the court was asked to hear the claims of said parties
and ascertain to whom the estate should be apportioned. A guardian
ad litem having been appointed by the court for Nancy B.
Clarke, the application was heard, and a decree was entered finding
that she was the sole heir and distributee of her deceased sister
Julia. The Connecticut law, which devolved on Nancy the whole of
the real estate of Julia, differed from the law of South Carolina,
by which the estate of Julia, both real and personal, passed
equally to the father and to Nancy the surviving sister.
Henry P. Clarke individually appealed from the decision of the
probate court to the Superior Court of the County of Fairfield.
That court filed its findings stating the facts concerning the
controversy, and reserved the resulting questions of law to the
Supreme Court of Errors of the state, which court recommended that
the decree of the probate court be affirmed. 70 Conn.195. Thereupon
the Superior Court of Fairfield County entered a decree in
conformity to the mandate to it directed.
Page 178 U. S. 189
In the body of the decree, the court referred to the contention
between the parties and stated the one pertinent to the issue now
before us as follows:
"Upon the facts aforesaid, the appellant claimed and contended
that the decision and decree of the Circuit Court for the Fifth
Judicial Circuit of the State of South Carolina, being the Court of
Common Pleas and General Sessions for Richland County, affirmed by
the Supreme Court of said state, 46 S.C. 230, in the case of Henry
P. Clarke, executor and trustee, against Nancy B. Clarke, in its
interpretation and construction of the will of the said Julia H.
Clarke, to the effect that said will worked an equitable conversion
into personalty at the time of her death of all the real estate of
the testatrix, wherever situated, was binding and conclusive on the
courts of this state in his favor in this proceeding, and that to
hold otherwise would be to deny full faith and credit to the
judicial proceedings and judgment of the State of South Carolina,
and would be in contravention of section 1, Article IV, of the
Constitution of the United States."
An appeal was taken from the decree of the superior court. The
Supreme Court of Errors of Connecticut, although it remarked that
the appeal was unnecessary, as its prior judgment had settled the
controversy between the parties, yet entertained the appeal, and
affirmed the decree below. 70 Conn. 483.
MR. JUSTICE WHITE, after making the foregoing statement,
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The Supreme Court of Errors of Connecticut held that the will of
Julia H. Clarke, wife of the plaintiff in error, did not at the
time of her death work an equitable conversion into personalty
Page 178 U. S. 190
of the real estate situated in the State of Connecticut, and
consequently that though personal property might be governed by the
law of the domicil, real estate within Connecticut was controlled
by the law of Connecticut, and hence that Nancy B. Clarke, as
surviving sister of Julia Clarke, inherited, under the laws of
Connecticut, to the exclusion of the father, the interest of the
deceased sister Julia in the real estate in Connecticut which had
passed to Julia by the will of her mother. It is assigned as error
that, in so deciding, the Connecticut court refused full faith and
credit to the decree of the courts of South Carolina, wherein it
was adjudged that the will of Mrs. Clarke had the effect of
converting her real estate,
wherever situated, into
personalty; the deduction being that as under the South Carolina
decision the real estate situated in Connecticut became personal
property, it was the duty of the Connecticut court to have decided
that the land passed by the law of South Carolina, and not
according to the law of Connecticut, and hence that, instead of
treating the daughter Nancy as the owner of the whole of the real
estate, it should have recognized the father as having a half
interest therein. And the correctness of this proposition is really
the only question which the assignment of errors presents for our
decision.
The argument at bar has taken a wide range, and the various
legal principles by which it was deemed that a solution of the
controversy might be facilitated have been supported by a very
elaborate reference to authority. We do not deem it necessary,
however, to critically review the cases cited and the observations
of text writers which were relied on in argument, nor to analyze
all the contentions which it is asserted those authorities sustain.
We say this because, in our opinion, the matter at issue may be
disposed of by the application of two well defined and elementary
legal principles.
It is a doctrine firmly established that the law of a state in
which land is situated controls and governs its transmission by
will or its passage in case of intestacy. This familiar rule has
been frequently declared by this Court, a recent statement thereof
being contained in the opinion delivered in
De Vaughn v.
Hutchinson, 165 U. S. 566,
where the Court said (p.
165 U. S.
570):
Page 178 U. S. 191
"It is a principle firmly established that to the law of the
state in which the land is situated we must look for the rules
which govern its descent, alienation, and transfer, and for the
effect and construction of wills and other conveyances.
United
States v. Crosby, 7 Cranch 115;
Clark v.
Graham, 6 Wheat. 5774;
McGoon v.
Scales, 9 Wall. 23;
Brine v. Insurance
Co., 96 U. S. 627."
Now in the case at bar, the courts of Connecticut, construing
the will of Mrs. Clarke, have declared that, by the law of
Connecticut, land situated in that state owned by Mrs. Clarke at
her decease continued to be, after her death, real estate for the
purpose of devolution of title thereto. The proposition relied on
therefore is this, although the court of last resort of Connecticut
(declaring the law of that state) has held that the real estate in
question had not become personal property by virtue of the will of
Mrs. Clarke, nevertheless it should have decided to the contrary,
because a court of South Carolina had so decreed. This, however, is
but to argue that the law declared by the South Carolina court
should control the passage by will of land in Connecticut, and
therefore is equivalent to denying the correctness of the
elementary proposition that the law of Connecticut where the real
estate is situated governed in such a case. It is conceded that had
the will been presented to the courts of Connecticut in the first
instance and rights been asserted under it, that the operative
force of its provisions upon real estate in Connecticut would have
been within the control of such courts. But it is said a different
rule must be applied where the will has been presented to a South
Carolina court and a construction has been there given to it, for,
in such a case, not the will, but the decree of the South Carolina
court construing the will, is the measure of the rights of the
parties as to real estate in Connecticut. The proposition, when
truly comprehended, amounts but to the contention that the laws of
the respective states controlling the transmission of real property
by will, or in case of intestacy, are operative only so long as
there does not exist in a foreign jurisdiction a judgment or decree
which in legal effect has changed the law of the situs of the real
estate. This is but to contend that what cannot be
Page 178 U. S. 192
done directly can be accomplished by indirection, and that the
fundamental principle which gives to a sovereignty an exclusive
jurisdiction over the land within its borders is in legal effect
dependent upon the nonexistence of a decree of a court of another
sovereignty determining the status of such land. Manifestly,
however, an authority cannot be said to be exclusive, or even to
exist at all, where its exercise may be thus frustrated at any
time. These conclusions are not escaped by saying that it is not
the law of Connecticut which conflicts with the interpretation of
the will adopted by the South Carolina court, but the decision of
the court of Connecticut which does so. In this forum, the local
law of Connecticut as to real estate is the law of that state as
announced by the court of last resort of that state.
As correctly observed in the course of the opinion delivered by
the Supreme Court of Errors of Connecticut, the question as to the
operative effect of the will of Mrs. Clarke upon the status of land
situated in Connecticut was one directly involving the mode of
passing title to lands in that state. This resulted from the fact
that, if the will worked a conversion into personalty immediately
upon the death of Mrs. Clarke, as contended, it necessarily vested
her executor with authority at once to sell and convey the real
estate in Connecticut by a deed sufficient, under the laws of that
state, to transfer title to real estate -- a power which was held
by the courts of Connecticut not to have been conferred. Had the
executor assumed to exercise such a power, however, the validity or
invalidity of a conveyance thus executed would have been one
exclusively for the courts of Connecticut to determine, just as
would have been the question of the sufficiency of the will to vest
title. Such being the case, there is no basis for the contention
that it was not the exclusive province of the courts of Connecticut
to determine, prior to the execution of such a conveyance, whether
or not the power to do so existed.
As further observed by the Connecticut court, whether Mr.
Clarke, as executor and trustee under the will of his wife, had any
power, duty, or estate with respect to lands situated in
Connecticut depended upon the laws of that state. The courts of
Page 178 U. S. 193
the domicil of Mrs. Clarke could properly be called upon to
construe her will so far as it affected property which was within
or might properly come under the jurisdiction of those tribunals.
If, however, by the law as enforced in Connecticut, land in
Connecticut owned by Mrs. Clarke at her decease was real estate for
all purposes, despite the provisions contained in her will, that
land was a subject matter not directly amenable to the jurisdiction
of the courts of another state, however much those courts might
indirectly affect and operate upon it in controversies where the
court, by reason of its jurisdiction over persons and the nature of
the controversy, might coerce the execution of a conveyance of or
other instrument encumbering such land.
And the cogency of the reasons just given is further
demonstrated by considering the case from another, though somewhat
similar, aspect. The decree of the South Carolina court, which, it
is contended, had the effect of converting real estate situated in
Connecticut into personal property, was not one rendered between
persons who were
sui juris. Nancy B. Clarke, one of the
parties to the suit in South Carolina, and whom the Connecticut
court has held inherited, to the exclusion of the father, under the
laws of Connecticut, the whole of the real estate belonging to her
sister, was a minor. She was therefore incompetent, in the
proceedings in South Carolina, to stand in judgment for the purpose
of depriving herself of the rights which belonged to her under the
law of Connecticut as to the real estate within that state. Neither
the executor nor trustee under the will, nor the guardian
ad
litem, nor any other person assuming to represent the minor in
South Carolina, had authority to act for her
quoad her
interest in real estate beyond the jurisdiction of the South
Carolina court, and which was situated in Connecticut.
It cannot be doubted that the courts of a state where real
estate is situated have the exclusive right to appoint a guardian
of a nonresident minor, and vest in such guardian the exclusive
control and management of land belonging to said minor, situated
within the state. This Court had occasion to consider and pass upon
this doctrine in the case of
Hoyt v. Sprague, 103 U.
S. 613, and, in the course of the opinion, it was said
(p.
103 U. S.
631):
Page 178 U. S. 194
"One of the ordinary rules of comity exercised by some European
states is to acknowledge the authority and power of foreign
guardians -- that is, guardians of minors and others appointed
under the laws of their domicil in other states. But this rule of
comity does not prevail to the same extent in England and the
United States. In regard to real estate, it is entirely disallowed,
and is rarely admitted in regard to personal property. Justice
Story, speaking of a decision which favored the exterritorial power
of a guardian in reference to personal property, says:"
"It has certainly not received any sanction in America in the
states acting under the jurisprudence of the common law. The rights
and powers of guardians are considered as strictly local, and not
as entitling them to exercise any authority over the person or
personal property of their wards in other states, upon the same
general reasoning and policy which have circumscribed the rights
and authorities of executors and administrators."
(Story, Confl.Laws, secs. 499, 504, 504a.
And see
Wharton, Confl.Laws, secs. 259-268, 2d ed.; 3 Burge, Colon. &
Foreign Laws 1011.) And some of those foreign jurists who contend
most strongly for the general application of the ward's
lex
domicilii admit that, when it comes to the alienation of
foreign assets, an exception is to be made in favor of the
jurisdiction within which the property is situate for the reason
that this concerns the ward's property, and not his person.
(Wharton, secs. 267, 268).
Of what efficacy, however, would be the power of one state to
control he administration, through its own courts, of real estate
within the state, belonging to minors, without regard to the
domicil of the minor, if all such real estate could be disposed of
and the administration thereof be controlled by the decree of the
court of another state. Here again, the argument relied on must
rest upon the false assumption that an exclusive power which
confessedly exists in the courts of one jurisdiction may be wholly
destroyed or rendered nugatory by the action of the courts of
another jurisdiction in whom is vested no authority whatever on the
subject. It results that no person before the South Carolina court
assuming to speak for the estate of Nancy B. Clarke represented any
real property of said Nancy which
Page 178 U. S. 195
was not within the territorial jurisdiction of South Carolina,
and the decree therefore could not affect land in Connecticut, an
interest which was not before the court.
When, therefore, Henry P. Clarke, as administrator, appointed in
Connecticut, of the estate of his deceased daughter, Julia Clarke,
applied to the Connecticut probate court to determine who was
entitled to the "real estate" owned by the intestate, it was the
province of the Connecticut court to decide such question solely
with reference to the law of Connecticut. Its power in this regard
was not limited by the fact that in order to determine who owned
the real estate, it was necessary for the court to construe the
will of the mother of the intestate, and to determine what effect
it had upon the status of the real estate under the law of
Connecticut. Having a right to decide these questions, it was not
constrained to adopt the construction of the will which had been
announced by the court of South Carolina. From these conclusions it
follows that, because the court of Connecticut applied the law of
that state in determining the devolution of title to real estate
there situated, thereby no violation of the constitutional
requirement that full faith and credit must be given in one state
to the judgments and decrees of the courts of another state was
brought about, as the decree of the South Carolina court, in the
particular under consideration, was not entitled to be followed by
the courts of Connecticut, by reason of a want of jurisdiction in
the court of South Carolina over the particular subject matter
which was sought to be concluded in Connecticut by such decree.
Thompson v.
Whitman, 18 Wall. 457;
Cole v. Cunningham,
133 U. S. 107;
Grover & Baker Sewing Machine Co. v. Radcliffe,
137 U. S. 287;
Simmons v. Saul, 138 U. S. 439;
Reynolds v. Stockton, 140 U. S. 254.
Judgment affirmed.
