Andrew Keely v. Joseph Moore

• Decision Date: 19 December 1904
• Docket Number: No. 55,55
• Citation: 49 L.Ed. 376,25 S.Ct. 169,196 U.S. 38
• Parties: ANDREW C. KEELY, Trustee, et al., Plffs. in Err. , v. JOSEPH H. MOORE et al
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

196 U.S. 38

25 S.Ct. 169

49 L.Ed. 376

ANDREW C. KEELY, Trustee, et al., Plffs. in Err.,

v JOSEPH H. MOORE et al.

No. 55.

Argued November 8, 9, 1904.

Decided December 19, 1904.

Messrs. C. C. Cole, Hugh T. Taggart, and Leo Simmons for plaintiff in error.

Messrs. D. W. Baker and Wilton J. Lambert for defendant in error.

Statement by Mr. Justice Brown:

This was an action of ejectment brought in the supreme court of the District by grantees of the heirs at law of William Thomson against Joseph H. Moore and the firm of Thomas J. Fisher & Company, agents of Mary Cecelia and Georgiana Hawkes Thomson, of the county of Kent, England, devisees under the will of William Thomson, to recover possession of an undivided ninety-one one hundredths of certain real estate in the city of Washington. Upon the trial it was admitted that William Thomson died in Southampton, England, in 1887, seised of the lot in question; that he was born in, and was a citizen of, the United States, leaving no issue or descendants. Plaintiffs had acquired the title of the heirs at alw, and the defendants were in possession of the lot as life tenants under his alleged will.

The validity of the will and the due execution thereof were contested by the plaintiffs for reasons hereinafter indicated in the opinion. The trial resulted in a verdict for the defendants, upon which judgment was entered, and affirmed by the court of appeals. 22 App. D. C. 9.

Mr. Justice Brown delivered the opinion of the court:

The validity of the will was attacked upon three grounds: 1st, that it has not the requisite number of witnesses to pass real estate in this District; 2d, that the testator was of unsound mind; 3d, that undue influence had been exercised by one of the designated executors, and others.

Thomson was a resident of Washington, but, at the time of and for some years prior to his death was the American consul at Southampton, England. One John H. Cooksey, a resident merchant at Southampton, was his vice consul. The will was prepared by Walter R. Lomer, a resident solicitor, and was executed at his office February 24, 1866. By this will he devised the property in controversy to the appellees Mary Cecelia Thomson and Georgiana Hawkes Thomson, his cousins, of Kent county, England, jointly for their joint lives, and to the survivor of them, with remainder to Mary Cunningham Roberts, of London, for life, and remainder in fee to her only son. The will, which was executed in duplicate, was written upon two sheets of paper, to each of which the testator affixed his name. It was witnessed in the usual form by Lomer and by one Linthorne, a clerk in his office, who attached their signatures in the presence of and at the request of the testator, and in the presence of each other. On the day after the execution of the will Thomson again went to the office of his solicitor, Lomer, who wrote a certificate of acknowledgment in the margin of the second and last page of the will, which was signed by Cooksey, the vice consul.

The original will, being of record in the Probate and Admiralty Division of the High Court of Justice in London, could not be produced, but was proved by a certificate and examined copy. The attestation clause and the certificate were as follows:

Signed and acknowledged by the said William Thom- son, the testator, as and for his last will and testament in the presence of us, both being present at the same time, who at his request in his presence, and in the presence of each other have hereunto subscribed our names as witnesses.

Walter R. Lomer,

Solicitor, Southampton, Eng.

R. Roupe Linthorne,

His Articled Clerk.

I hereby certify that William Thomson, consul at Southampton for the United States of America, attended before me this 25th day of February, 1886, and acknowledged the foregoing paper-writing contained in two sheets of paper as his last will and testament and that the signature 'Wm. Thomson' at the foot thereof is in the proper handwriting of the said William Thomson.

[Seal U. S. Consul.] John H. Cooksey,

Vice Consul United States of America.

The execution of the will was proved by the two subscribing witnesses, Lomer and Linthorne, and the certificate by proof of the death of Cooksey, and the genuineness of his signature. This was proper. Clarke v. Courtney, 5 Pet. 319, 8 L. ed. 140; Stebbins v. Duncan, 108 U. S. 32, 27 L. ed. 641, 2 Sup. Ct. Rep. 313. At this time there was in force in this District the 5th section of the act of 29 Charles H., chapter 3, which had been adopted in Maryland in 1798, and carried into this District as § 4, chapter 70, of the Compiled Statutes of 1894. It provided as follows: 'All devises and bequests of any lands or tenements, devisable by law, shall be in writing, and signed by the party so devising the same, or by some other person in his presence, and by his express directions, and shall be attested and subscribed in the presence of the said devisor by three or four credible witnesses, or else they shall be utterly void and of none effect.'

The object of the certificate in question that Thomson took the will away with him is not entirely clear, though from the fact after its execution, and stated that he would attend before the consul general at London and obtain the requisite certificate, it would seem that he thought the certificate was necessary to the proof of the will in another country. He did not go to London, however, but called again at Mr. Lomer's office, with the request that he prepare the requisite certificate, which he afterwards procured Mr. Cooksey to sign. The certificate was not offered as proof that the will was a copy of the original, since it was annexed to the original, and we can consider it only as proof as to what it contains. It certifies, in substance, that the testator attended before Cooksey upon the day following the date of the will, acknowledged it to be his last will and testament, and that the signature is genuine. Whether he intended to certify that Thomson acknowledged his signature to be genuine, or that he, Cooksey, certified that it was genuine, is somewhat uncertain; but if the words 'Vice Consul of the United States of America,' which are merely superfluous, were omitted, there would be no failure to comply with the statute, unless in the omission to certify that Cooksey, the certifying officer, 'attested and subscribed in the presence of the said devisor.' But as it appears that Thomson, not knowing when he would be in London, took the certificate to the vice consul, and that the latter signed it, the jury might properly draw the conclusion that it was signed in the testator's presence. This would be the usual course of business, and the presumption is that Cooksey conformed to it and to his duty as a certifying officer.

The certificate was probably prepared under the belief that wills, like deeds, made in a foreign country, must be executed and acknowledged before some foreign official, or 'before any (some) secretary of legation or consular officer of the United States' (Rev. Stat. § 1750; U. S. Comp. Stat. 1901, p. 1196; D. C. Comp. Stat. chap. 58, § 6); but as such certificate was unofficial, and contributes nothing, as such, to the validity of the will, it can only be looked upon as the affirmation of an ordinary witness to the facts therein stated. No particular form of attestation was necessary, as appears to be the case in England and in several of the United States; and if the certificate of Cooksey had been written at...