Herman Pinel v. Thomas Pinel

• Court: U.S. Supreme Court
• Writing for the Court: Pitney
• Citation: Herman Pinel v. Thomas Pinel, 240 U.S. 594, 36 S.Ct. 416, 60 L.Ed. 817 (1916)
• Decision Date: 03 April 1916
• Docket Number: No. 181,181
• Parties: HERMAN H. PINEL and Sarah Slyfield, Appts., v. THOMAS F. PINEL, Thomas F. Pinel as Special Administrator of the Estate of Edgar O. Pinel, Deceased, and Rachael Pinel

240 U.S. 594

36 S.Ct. 416

60 L.Ed. 817

HERMAN H. PINEL and Sarah Slyfield, Appts.,

v THOMAS F. PINEL, Thomas F. Pinel as Special Administrator of the Estate of Edgar O. Pinel, Deceased, and Rachael Pinel.

No. 181.

Argued January 7, 1916.

Decided April 3, 1916.

Messrs. Emil W. Snyder and Frank E. Robson for appellants.

Messrs. Lynn M. Johnston and L. C. Stanley for appellees.

Mr. Justice Pitney delivered the opinion of the court:

This is a direct appeal under § 238, Judicial Code (36 Stat. at L. 1157, chap. 231, Comp. Stat. 1913, § 1215), from an order dismissing a bill of complaint for want of jurisdiction. There are two complainants, and the jurisdictional questions certified are, (1) whether the amount in controversy is sufficient to give the court jurisdiction, and (2) whether the parties are collusively joined.

It is averred in the bill that complainants and defendants are the children of one Charles T. Pinel, a resident of the state of Michigan, who died June 26, 1888, possessed in fee simple of a tract of land situate in that state, and leaving a last will and testament which was afterwards duly admitted to probate there, by which he left his entire estate to the defendants, failing to provide for complainants, who are two of his children, and for another child, Charles W. Pinel; that their omission from the will was not intentional on the part of the said Charles T. Pinel, but was made by a mistake or accident; that the laws of the state of Michigan (Comp. Laws 1897, § 9286) provide that when any testator shall omit to provide in his will for any of his children, and it shall appear that such omission was not intentional and was made by mistake or accident, such child shall have the same share in the estate of the testator as if he had died intestate; that by virtue of the statute complainants and the said Charles W. Pinel were severally entitled to the same shares in the estate of Charles T. Pinel, deceased, as if he had died intestate; that testator left a widow and nine children, one of whom is since deceased; that after testator's death Charles W. Pinel conveyed all his interest in the estate to the complainant Sarah Slyfield; and that, by reason of the premises, 'complainant Herman Pinel is entitled to an undivided one-eighth interest, and complainant Sarah Slyfield to an undivided two-eighths interest, or in all both complainants together to an undivided three-eighths interest in the aforesaid property, which said interests are of the value of $4,500 and upwards over and above all encumbrances.' The prayer is, in effect, that the title of complainants to an undivided three-eighths interest in the land may be established.

The settled rule is that when two or more plaintiffs having separate and distinct demands unite in a single suit, it is essential that the demand of each be of the requisite jurisdictional amount; but when several plaintiffs unite to enforce a single title or right in which they have a common...