Bartleson v. Feidler

• Decision Date: 26 November 1906
• Docket Number: 1,209.
• Citation: 149 F. 299
• Parties: BARTLESON v. FEIDLER et al.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Western District of Washington

149 F. 299

BARTLESON v. FEIDLER et al.

No. 1,209.

United States Circuit Court, W.D. Washington, Northern Division.

November 26, 1906

James A. Snoddy, for complainant.

Bo Sweeney and G. E. Steiner, for administratrix.

HANFORD District Judge.

Preliminary to the consideration of the main controversy, the court must dispose of the defendants' contention that the United States commissioner at Nome, in the exercise of the powers of a probate court made an order of distribution of the estate of E. L. Feidler, which is a final determination of the rights of the parties to this action. The only ground upon which this claim can be maintained is the legal proposition that all matters which have been or might have been litigated in a court of competent jurisdiction are deemed to have been by a final judgment adjudicated, and that all parties who appeared in the proceedings or were required to appear, and their privies, are bound by the adjudication. In this view a very simple test may be applied by which to judge whether by the rule of res adjudicata the complainant is precluded from maintaining this suit in this court. The order of distribution, if it may be considered as a final judgment, is potent only to the extent of the lawful power of the court to give it force and virtue. By this I mean to invoke the principle often expressed in the phrase 'that a stream cannot rise higher than its source. ' The test to be applied is in a correct answer to the inquiry, did the commissioner's court have jurisdiction to bring the parties before it, require them to frame their issues, hear their evidence and arguments, and decide the question whether or not E. L. Feidler, the deceased, and the defendant, F. J Feidler, were copartners in carrying on the business of the Progresso Trading Company, and whether they as copartners owned the property, and the money which came into the custody of the administrator appointed by the commissioner's court? On this point I hold that the laws do not confer upon the probate courts of Alaska the chancery powers necessary to be exercised in hearing and deciding such questions. I deem this ground sufficient for overruling the defendants' objection, and will refrain from further discussion of the question, except merely to cite the decision of the Supreme Court of the United States in the case of Borer v Chapman, 119 U.S. 587, 7 Sup.Ct. 342, 30 L.Ed. 532 which supports the complainant's argument on this branch of the case, and the conclusion that a creditor has the right to follow into the hands of their holders, in one state, the assets of his debtor, distributed by order of the probate court of a different state.

Where the Feidler brothers copartners in the business of the Progresso Trading Company at the time of the death of E. L Fiedler? That is the main question in this case. The defendant F. J. Feidler is probably the only...