Juan Garzot v. Maria Rios De Rubio No 141 Victor Burset v. Maria Rios De Rubio No 142 Victor Burset v. Maria Rios De Rubio No 604

• Decision Date: 06 April 1908
• Docket Number: Nos. 141,604,142,s. 141
• Parties: JUAN R. GARZOT and Faustino R. Fuertes, Copartners under the firm name of Garzot & Fuertes, Appts., v. MARIA RIOS DE RUBIO. NO 141. VICTOR BURSET, Petronila Rios de Noya, and her husband, Francisco Noya, Appts., v. MARIA RIOS DE RUBIO. NO 142. VICTOR BURSET, Petronila Patricia Rios, joined by her husband, Francisco Noya; Juan R. Garzot and Faustino R. Fuertes, Copartners under the firm name of Garzot & Fuertes; Catalina Romaguera, et al., Appts. v. MARIA RIOS DE RUBIO. NO 604
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

209 U.S. 283

28 S.Ct. 548

52 L.Ed. 794

JUAN R. GARZOT and Faustino R. Fuertes, Copartners under the firm name of Garzot & Fuertes, Appts.,

v MARIA RIOS DE RUBIO.

NO 141.

VICTOR BURSET, Petronila Rios de Noya, and her

husband, Francisco Noya, Appts.,

v. MARIA RIOS DE RUBIO.

NO 142.

VICTOR BURSET, Petronila Patricia Rios, joined by her

husband, Francisco Noya; Juan R. Garzot and Faustino R.

Fuertes, Copartners under the firm name of Garzot &

Fuertes; Catalina Romaguera, et al., Appts.

v. MARIA RIOS DE RUBIO.

NO 604.

Nos. 141, 142, 604.

Argued February 27, 28, 1908.

Decided April 6, 1908.

Messrs. N. B. K. Pettingill and George H. Lamar for appellants.

Messrs. Frederic D. McKenney and Francis H. Dexter for appellee.

Mr. Justice White delivered the opinion of the court:

These several appeals were taken by the various appellants from the same decree. We dispose of them together. The transcript is voluminous and confused. Following the order of the court below and the direction of the counsel for all the appellants, not objected to by the counsel for the appellee, the transcript contains all the proceedings, all the testimony offered at the hearing, together with the opinion as well as the elaborate findings of fact and conclusions of law by which the court below disposed of the case. The many assignments of erros proceed upon the assumption that every question arising from the transcript is open for our consideration.

Our power to review is derived from § 35 of the act of April 12, 1900 (31 Stat. at L. 85, chap. 191), which provides 'that writs of error and appeals from the final decisions of . . . the district court of the United States [for Porto Rico] shall be allowed and may be taken to the Supreme Court of the United States in the same manner and under the same regulations . . . as from the supreme courts of the territories of the United States.' Our jurisdiction over causes coming from the territories generally was thus stated in Idaho & O. Land Improv. Co. v. Bradbury, 132 U. S. 509, 513, 33 L. ed. 433, 436, 10 Sup. Ct. Rep. 177, 178:

'Congress has prescribed that the appellate jurisdiction of this court over 'judgments and decrees' of the territorial courts, 'in cases of trial by jury, shall be exercised by writ of error, and in all other cases by appeal;' and 'on appeal, instead of the evidence at large, a statement of the facts of the case in the nature of a special verdict, and also the rulings of the court on the admission or rejection of evidence when excepted to, shall be made and certified by the court below,' and transmitted to this court with the transcript of the record. Act of April 7, 1874, chap. 80, § 2, 18 Stat. 27, 28.'

And, as pointed out in the same case, (p. 513), followed since in a long line of cases:

'The necessary effect of this enactment is that no judgment or decree of the highest court of a territory can be reviewed by this court in matter of fact, but only in matter of law. As observed by Chief Justice Waite: 'We are not to consider the testimony in any case. Upon a writ of error, we are confined to the bill of exceptions, or questions of law otherwise presented by the record; and, upon an appeal, to the statement of facts and rulings certified by the court below. The facts set forth in the statement which must come up with the appeal are conclusive on us.' Hecht v. Boughton, 105 U. S. 235, 236, 26 L. ed. 1018.'

While the suggestion that because there is no intermediate reviewing court between this and the district court of the United States for Porto Rico, differing from what is generally the case in the territories of the United States, a wider scope of authority should exist in reviewing by appeal the decrees of the district court of Porto Rico, may have cogency, it affords no ground for disregarding the plain command of the statute of 1874, which is here applicable, as expounded by many previous decisions of this court. It follows that the greater part of the transcript is superfluous, and we therefore disregard it and confine our attention to such legal questions as necessarily arise on the face of the record; viz., to rulings concerning the rejection or admission of testimony, duly excepted to, and to the sufficiency of the findings to sustain the legal conclusion or decree based on them.

The sole complainant, Maria Rios de Rubio, a widow, was averred to be 'a resident of San Juan, Porto Rico, and a loyal subject of the King of Spain.' There was no specific traverse of this averment. The court expressly found 'that the citizenship and residence of the parties was as alleged in the bill of complaint.' After the findings of fact had been made and the decree entered, and after an appeal by one of the parties, other of the defendants who had initiated appeals, but had not perfected them, moved for an extension of time to perfect their appeals and for an opening of the decree, on the ground that when the bill was filed complainant was not a citizen of Spain, but of Porto Rico, and therefore the court never had jurisdiction of the case. This motion was entertained by the judge then presiding, who succeeded in office the judge by whom the cause was tried. After hearing the evidence offered by both parties and analyzing the same, it was found that the complainant was a citizen of Spain, as alleged. The motion to reopen was therefore denied. Without stopping to review the elaborate discussion of the subject on behalf of the appellants, we content ourselves with saying that we think the facts upon which the court based its action sustain that conclusion, and therefore the contention as to want of jurisdiction, because of the alleged absence of Spanish citizenship of the complainant, is without merit.

In approaching the merits we put out of view for the moment the many assignments of error which are addressed to rulings of the court admitting or rejecting evidence, and reserve for ulterior determination whether, in view of the state of the record, such objections are open, and, if they are, whether any of them are well taken.

In order to a clear understanding of the origin of the controversy, we state the facts out of which it arose, confining ourselves to those shown by the pleadings or documents made a part thereof or established by the findings below.

Jose Maria Rios and Manuela Gutman were married in Porto Rico in 1866. There being no marital contract to the contrary, a legal community of property, as defined in the Spanish law, supervened between the spouses.

The wife, at the time of the marriage, had 8,000 pesos of separate money and the husband about half that amount. During the nine years which intervened between the marriage and September 8, 1875, the husband had become the owner of various pieces of real estate, seven or eight of which were situated in the district of Naguabo, and one, or maybe two or more, in the district of Humacao. On Septem- ber 8, 1875, the husband, Rios, died, leaving surviving him his widow, Manuela, and three minor children, the issue of the marriage; viz., two daughters, the one Petronila and the other Maria, and a son, Jose. On the night of his death the husband executed a power of attorney, authorizing his wife to make a last will on his behalf, and no September 12 following, in virtue of this power, the wife executed the will. As the document was in no respect dispositive, but purely declaratory of the rule of legal succession, its effect on this controversy may be put out of view. By the law of Spain the three children were the heirs of the estate of their father, less the mother's share of the community estate, if any, subject to the usufruct of the mother on her husband's estate, and subject to a circumstances justified such an allowance. circumstances justfied such an allowance. The widow instituted the necessary preliminary probate proceedings in the proper court to open the estate, and became executrix and the tutrix of her minor children and usufructuary of their estate, and, in one or both capacities, went into possession and control of the entire property, including in such property her community estate, if any there was. Two years after the widow married Miguel Bustelo.

In November, 1887, Jose, the son by the first marriage, being yet a minor, died intestate, and his mother, Manuela, instituted in the proper court proceedings concerning the estate of her deceased son. It may be conceded that the mother, as the immediate ascendant, was the sole heir of the son, to the exclusion of the sisters, the estate taken by her, however, being only usufructuary in character, since at her death, as the estate of the son had come to him as part of his paternal inheritance (the succession of his father), it reverted to the sisters, children of the father, because of the principle of the Spanish law which took into account the source whence the estate of the son had been derived, for the purpose of regulating its transmission by death.

In 1890 the daughter Maria married one Rubio, and in 1898 Petronila, the other daughter, married one Noya. In the meanwhile five children were born of the marriage between Manuela Gutman and Bustelo, and the latter died, leaving surviving him his widow and these five children. From the death of the first husband, in 1875, to January, 1901, Manuela Gutman possessed and controlled all the property which she entered into possession of at the date of the death of her first husband, without rendering accounts of her administration to the court in which the estate had been opened, although that court had full power to control and direct her administration.

The daughters, before their marriage, generally lived with their mother and were educated and supported by her, and after their marriage received some allowance for their support, the extent of which need not be considered. It is undoubted that after their marriage dissatisfaction on the part of the daughters and their husbands ensued because of the...