Johnson v. Powers
Decision Date | 09 March 1891 |
Citation | 11 S.Ct. 525,139 U.S. 156,35 L.Ed. 112 |
Parties | JOHNSON v. POWERS et al |
Court | U.S. Supreme Court |
J. P. Whittemore, A. H. Garland, and Heber J. May, for appellant.
W. F. Cogswell, for appellees.
This is a bill in equity filed in the circuit court of the United States for the northern district of New York by George K. Johnson, a citizen of Michigan, in behalf of himself and of all other persons interested in the administration of the assets of Nelson P. Stewart, late of Detroit, in the county of Wayne and state of Michigan, against several persons, citizens of New York, alleged to hold real estate in New York under conveyances made by Stewart in fraud of his creditors. The bill is founded upon the jurisdiction in equity of the circuit court of the United States, independent of statutes or practice in any state, to administer, as between citizens of different states, any deceased person's assets within its jurisdiction. Payne v. Hook, 7 Wall. 425; Kennedy v. Creswell, 101 U. S. 641. At the threshold of the case we are met by the question whether the plaintiff shows such an interest in Stewart's estate as to be entitled to invoke the exercise of this jurisdiction. He seeks to maintain his bill both as administrator and, as a creditor in behalf of himself and all other credit ors of Stewart. The only evidence that he was either administrator or creditor is a duly-certified copy of a record of the probate court of the county of Wayne and state of Michigan, showing his appointment by that court as administrator of Stewart's estate; the subsequent appointment by that court, pursuant to the statutes of Michigan, of commissioners to receive, examine, and adjust all claims of creditors against the estate; and the report of those commissioners, allowing several claims, including one to this plaintiff, 'George K. Johnson, for judgments against claimant in Wayne circuit court as indorser,' and naming him, as administrator, as the party objecting to the allowance of all the claims. The plaintiff certainly cannot maintain this bill as administrator of Stewart, even if the bill can be construed as framed in that aspect, because he admits that he has never taken out letters of administration in New York; and the letters of administration granted to him in Michigan confer no power beyond the limits of that state, and cannot authorize him to maintain any suit in the courts, either state or national, hld in any other state. Stacy v. Thrasher, 6 How. 44, 58; Noonan v. Bradley, 9 Wall. 394.
The question remains whether, as against these defendants, the plaintiff has proved himself to be a creditor of Stewart. The only evidence on this point, as already observed, is the record of the proceedings before commissioners appointed by the probate court in Michigan. It becomes necessary, therefore, to consider the nature and the effect of those proceedings. They were had under the provisions of the General Statutes of Michigan, (2 How. St. §§ 5888-5906,) 'the general idea' of which, as stated by Judge Cooley, Clark v. Davis, 32 Mich. 154, 157. The commissioners, when once appointed, become a special tribunal, which, for most purposes, is independent of the probate court, and from which either party may appeal to the circuit court of the county; and, as against an adverse claimant, the administrator, general or special, represents the estate, both before the commissioners and upon the appeal. 2 How. St. §§ 5907-5917; Lothrop v. Conely, 39 Mich. 757. The decision of the commissioners, or of the circuit court on appeal, should properly be only an allowance or disallowance of the claim, and not in the form of a judgment at common law. La Roe v. Freeland, 8 Mich. 531. But, as between the parties to the controversy, and as to the payment of the claim out of the estate in the control of the probate court, it has the effect of a judgment, and cannot be collaterally impeached by either of those parties. Shurbun v. Hooper, 40 Mich. 503. Those statutes provide that, when the administrator declines to appeal from a decision of the commissioners, any person interested in the estate may appeal from that decision to the circuit court; and that, when a claim of the administrator against the estate is disallowed by the commissioners, and he appeals, he shall give notice of his appeal to all concerned by personal service or by publication. 2 How. St. §§ 5916, 5917. It may well be doubted whether, within the spirit and intent of these provisions, the administrator, when he is also the claimant, is not bound to give notice to other persons interested in the estate, in order that they may have an opportunity to contest his claim before the commissioners; and whether an allowance of his claim, as in this case, in the absence of any impartial representative of the estate, and of other persons interested therein, can be of any binding effect, even in Michigan. See Lothrop v. Conely, above cited. But we need not decide that point, because upon broader grounds it is quite clear that those proceedings are incompetent evidence in this suit and against these defendants that the plaintiff is a creditor of Stewart or of his estate. A judgment in rem binds only the property within the control of the court which rendered it, and a judgment in personam binds only the parties to that judgment, and those in privity with them. A judgment recovered against the administrator of a deceased person in one state is no evidence of debt in a subsequent suit by the same plaintiff in another state, either against an administrator, whether the same or a different person, appointed there, or against any other person having assets of the deceased. Aspden v. Nixon, 4 How. 467; Stacy v. Thrasher, 6 How. 44; McLean v. Meek, 18 How. 16; Low v. Bartlett, 8 Allen, 259. In Stacy v. Thrasher, in which a judgment recovered in one state against an administrator appointed in that state upon an alleged debt of the intestate was held to be incompetent evidence of the debt in a suit brought by the same plaintiff in the circuit court of the United States held within another state aain st an administrator there appointed of the same intestate, the reasons given by Mr. Justice GRIER have so strong a bearing on the case before us, and on the argument of the appellant, as to be worth quoting from: 6 How. 58. In answering the objection that to apply these principles to a judgment obtained in another state of the Union would be to deny it the faith and credit and the effect to which it was entitled by the constitution and laws of the United States, he observed that it was evidence, and conclusive by way of estoppel, only between the same parties or their privies, or on the same subject-matter when the proceeding was in rem, and that the parties to the judgments in question were not the same; neither were they privies, in blood, in law, or by estate; and proceeded as follows: 6 How. 59, 60. ...
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