Bryan v. Nash

• Citation: 66 S.E. 69,110 Va. 329
• Parties: BRYAN. v. NASH.
• Decision Date: 18 November 1909
• Court: Supreme Court of Virginia

(110 Va. 329)

66 S.E. 69

BRYAN.

v.NASH.

Supreme Court of Appeals of Virginia.

Nov.18, 1909.

Error to Circuit Court, Rockbridge County.

Ejectment by Addie Nash against W. L Bryan. From a judgment for plaintiff, defendant brings error. Affirmed.

Glasgow & White, for plaintiff in error.

G. D. Letcher and E. M. Pendleton, for defendant in error.

CARDWELL, J. Archie Ranson owned, together with a sister, Alice Ranson, about 12 acres of land in Rockbridge county, with a small house thereon. Alice Ranson died in the fall of 1901 intestate, unmarried, and without issue, leaving her brother her only heir at law. Archie Ranson lived the last years of his life in Washington, D. C, and died there April 18, 1902, leaving a will, which was probated in the probate division of the Supreme Court of the District of Co lumbia within a few months thereafter.

By said will the testator, Archie Ranson, devised his land in Rockbridge county to Addie Nash, to whom he was engaged to be married. A copy of the will was probated in the circuit court of Rockbridge county, and the order of probate is as follows:

"State of Virginia, At Rockbridge Circuit Court, December 21st, 1906.

"The last will and testament of Archie Lewis Ranson, deceased, having been heretofore proved and admitted to probate and recorded in the Supreme Court of the District of Columbia, as appears from an authenticated copy thereof, together with a copy of the proof of the will and copies of orders of probate thereof thereto attached, was this day produced in court. And it appearing that the said will was duly executed as a will of personalty in the District of Columbia, the testator's domicil, and was so executed as to be a valid will of lands in the stateof Virginia by the laws thereof, on motion of Addie Nash, one of the beneficiaries under said will, it is ordered that the said copy of Archie Lewis Ranson, deceased's will, proved and admitted to probate and certified as aforesaid, be admitted to probate in this court as the last will and testament of the said Archie Lewis' Ranson, deceased, both as a will of real and personal estate, and be recorded in the clerk's office of this court. And it is further ordered to be entered of record that the value of the estate passing by the said will in the state of Virginia was estimated at $500, and that $1 state tax was paid on the probate thereof.

"Teste: A. T. Shields, Clerk."

This probate proceeding was had pursuant to section 2536, Code 1904, which is in this language:

"Sec. 2536. Probate of Copy of Will Proved Without the State; To What Extent Admitted to Probate.—Where a will relative to estate within this state has been proved without the same, an authenticated copy thereof, and the certificate of probate thereof, may be offered for probate in this state. When such copy is so offered, the court to which it is offered shall presume, in the absence of evidence to the contrary, that the will was duly executed and admitted to probate as a will of personalty in the state or county of the testator's domicil, and shall admit such copy to probate as a will of personalty in this state. And if it appear from such copy, that the will was proved in the foreign court of probate to have been so executed as to be a valid will of lands in this state by the law thereof, such copy may be admitted to probate as a will of real estate."

It appears that, soon after the death of Archie Ranson, W. L. Bryan, whose lands adjoined, desired to purchase the 12 acres of which Ranson died seised, and to that end he on May 14, 1902, addressed a letter to the "Heirs of Archie Ranson" at Washington, D. C, which letter fell into the hands of a colored lawyer Fountain Peyton, counsel for Addie Nash, and who answered Bryan's letter on July 21st, and Peyton's letter was replied to by Bryan August 14, 1902. The purpose of this correspondence on the part of Bryan, which was kept up till in April, 1903, was doubtless twofold—first, to ascertain if Archie Ranson had left a will, and, second, to purchase at private sale the 12 acres of land from the rightful owners thereof. A part of this correspondence was conducted by Bryan claiming to be the next of kin of Archie Ranson residing in Rockbridge county, in which it was represented to Addie Nash that there were debts being asserted against the interest of Alice Ranson in the land, and that, unless they were satisfied, the land would be sold, etc. At all events, the efforts of Bryan to purchase the land privately having failed, and the will of Archie Ranson not having been up to that time produced and probated in Rockbridge county, a chancery suit was instituted in the circuit court of Rockbridge county in August, 1903, by one John A. Ranson, the purpose of which was to have sold the 12 acres of land in question for partition among the plaintiff in that suit and certain defendants, named as the heirs at law of Alice Ranson, deceased, claiming that she had survived Archie Ranson, etc., and in that suit the said land was sold by a commissioner of the court to W. L. Bryan at public auction, the sale confirmed, the purchase money, $255 paid, and a deed of conveyance made and delivered to Bryan, bearing date June 5, 1905.

At the second August rules, 1907, this action of ejectment was brought in the circuit court of Rockbridge county by the said Addie Nash against the said W. L. Bryan to recover the said tract of 12 acres of land claimed by her under and by virtue of the said will of Archie Ranson, deceased, and upon a trial of the cause upon the defendant's plea of the general issue and a special plea of set-offs for improvements to the land the jury rendered its verdict in favor of the plaintiff for the land, allowing nothing for the defendant upon his plea of set-offs, and the court entered its judgment upon the verdict, to which judgment this writ of error was awarded the defendant.

The first assignment of error presents the question whether the copy of the will of Archie Ranson, deceased, was properly admitted to probate by the circuit court of Rockbridge county on December 21, 1906; the contention being that the copy of the will admitted to probate was never duly authenticated.

There is no merit in this assignment of error. The order of the circuit court admitting the will to probate recites every fact prescribed by the statute (section 2536, supra) necessary to the court's jurisdiction to enter it, and, being a court of general jurisdiction for the probate of wills, its judgment is final, and cannot be collaterally attacked.

In an elaborate argument, citing a great number of authorities, it is urged that there are irregularities in the certification of the execution of the will and of its probate in the probate court of the District of Columbia; but to follow up the argument, and to review the authorities cited in support of it, would be but going over the same ground that this court has gone over again and again to the conclusion repeatedly announced, that "a sentence pronounced by a court having jurisdiction, whether it be a sentence admitting a paper to probate or excluding it from probate, as long as it remains in force, binds conclusively, not only the immediate parties to the proceeding in which the sentence is had, but all other persons, and all other courts." That was announced as thestate of the law In Connolly v. Connolly, 32 Grat. 657, and has since been adhered to. Many of the decided cases that had gone before the case of Connolly v. Connolly were cited, and we shall refer to a few of them.

In Lancaster v. Wilson, 27 Grat. 629, referring to a judgment of probate of a will holding that such judgment is conclusive and final as to collateral attack, the court said: "It is not merely an arbitrary rule of law, established by the courts, but It is a doctrine founded upon reason and the soundest principles of public policy. It is one which has been adopted in the interest of the peace of society, and the permanent security of titles."

Plaintiff in error relies on section 3342 of the Code in support of the contention that the copy of the will of Archie Ranson admitted to probate in the circuit court of Rockbridge county was not duly authenticated; but with that statute, which merely prescribes how the records and proceedings of another state, or of the United States, are to be authenticated in order that they shall have faith and credit given them in the courts within this state, we...