Barker v. Eastman

• Decision Date: 11 December 1911
• Docket Number: 385.
• Citation: 192 F. 659
• Parties: BARKER et al. v. EASTMAN et al.
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of New Hampshire

192 F. 659

BARKER et al. v. EASTMAN et al.

No. 385.

United States Circuit Court, D. New Hampshire.

December 11, 1911

Alfred S. Hayes, for complainants.

Eastman Scammon & Gardner and John Kivel, for respondents.

ALDRICH District Judge.

This is a bill in equity, in which the plaintiffs ask to have their rights established and for relief, in respect to what is known as the 'Barker will.'

We take judicial notice of the fact that certain clauses of the will in question were considered and construed by the highest court of the state of New Hampshire something like 20 years ago. See Edgerly v. Barker, 66 N.H. 434, 31 A. 900 28 L.R.A. 328. It appears upon the arguments that the settlement of the estate under the will has been pending in the probate court during the entire period from that time until the present, and that the estate is still in custodia legis with important questions of distribution now pending before the Supreme Court of the state. Without discussing the abstract right of the plaintiffs to bring this proceeding and looking at the situation from an equitable standpoint, it is difficult to see why the plaintiffs should seek relief in this court, unless they seek for a different construction of the provisions of the will from that established by the highest court of the state in the early stages of the litigation. Indeed, such was the position of the plaintiffs upon oral argument.

The answer of Edwin G. Eastman, a trustee, under paragraph 6 thereof, in a sense raises the point whether the questions presented by the bill are cognizable in this court or in the probate court and the other courts of the state. If jurisdiction were assumed, it is sufficient, for present purposes, to say that there is no record before this court upon which any rights, in respect to the matters concerned could be ascertained and established. We have no doubt of the proposition that as to certain matters this court would have independent jurisdiction concurrent with that of the courts of the state.

There is a good statement in Burgess v. Seligman, 107 U.S. 20, 33, 2 Sup.Ct. 10, 21 (27 L.Ed. 359), of the relations which the state and United States courts sustain to each other, and to the property interests in disputes governed by state law. It is there said by Mr. Justice Bradley:

'The federal courts have an independent jurisdiction in the administration of state laws, co-ordinate with, and not subordinate to, that of the state courts, and are bound to exercise their own judgment as to the meaning and effect of those laws.' And in Covell v. Heyman, 111 U.S. 176, at page 182, 4 Sup.Ct. 355, at page 358 (28 L.Ed. 390), in speaking of the two courts, it is said:

'These courts do not belong to the same system, so far as their jurisdiction is concurrent; and, although they co-exist in the same space, they are independent, and have no common superior. They exercise jurisdiction, it is true, within the same territory, but not in the same plane, and, when one takes into its jurisdiction a specific thing, that res is as much withdrawn from the judicial power of the other as if it had been carried physically into a different territorial sovereignty.'

In connection with this question of independent and co-ordinate jurisdictions of the two courts, there must be considered the wholesome principles of comity which hold good, and which are particularly emphasized by the United States Supreme...