Roach v. Jurchak

• Decision Date: 02 February 1944
• Docket Number: 13.
• Citation: Roach v. Jurchak, 182 Md. 646, 35 A.2d 817 (Md. 1944)
• Parties: ROACH et al. v. JURCHAK et al.
• Court: Maryland Court of Appeals

35 A.2d 817

182 Md. 646

ROACH et al. v. JURCHAK et al.

No. 13.

Court of Appeals of Maryland

February 2, 1944

Appeal from Orphans' Court, Allegany County; Bernard B. Young and R. Hilary Lancaster, Judges.

Proceedings in the matter of the will of William F. Roach, deceased which had been originally admitted to probate in another state, and caveat of Zeula E. Roach and others against Peter P. Jurchak, executor and another. From an order dismissing the petition, caveators appeal.

Affirmed.

William A. Gunter, of Cumberland, for appellants.

Paul M Fletcher, of Cumberland, for appellees.

Before SLOAN, C.J., and DELAPLAINE, COLLINS, MARBURY, MELVIN, and BAILEY, JJ.

DELAPLAINE Judge.

William F. Roach, a resident of Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, for a number of years, but originally domiciled in Allegany County, Maryland, made a will on May 6, 1941, devising all his property, including his real estate in Frostburg, to Elizabeth Deiter and appointing Peter P. Jurchak his executor. The testator died in a mental hospital on March 23, 1942, and his will was admitted to probate by the Register of Wills for Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, on October 14, 1942. His widow, Zeula E. Roach, and four children were notified that the will would be offered for probate at the Orphans' Court for Allegany County, Maryland, on August 27, 1943. On that day the widow and children filed a caveat petition alleging that the testator was mentally incompetent, and his will was procured by undue influence. The executor thereupon explained that he was not presenting the will for probate, but only an authenticated copy for record. Caveators are appealing from an order of the Orphans' Court dismissing their petition.

The Maryland testamentary statute provides that whenever any interest in real estate shall pass under a domestic or foreign will probated elsewhere than in the County of the State or City of Baltimore in which the real estate is situated, a certified copy of the will and the order admitting it to probate shall be recorded and indexed in the office of the Register of Wills of the County or City in which the real estate is situated. Code, art. 93, sec. 85. The statute further provides that when any person interested in any devise or bequest of property within the limits of this State, contained in any will probated in any other State or foreign country, procures a copy of the will with a certificate of the probate thereof and files the same in the office of the Register of Wills, it shall thereupon be the duty of the Register of Wills to record the same as other wills admitted to probate in his office. Code, art. 93, sec. 369. When a copy of a foreign will is presented to the Register of Wills, and he finds that it has been properly authenticated, it is his statutory duty to record it. The Orphans' Court has no jurisdiction to entertain a caveat to such copy, because the sole inquiry is whether it is duly authenticated. The Register of Wills is charged by the statute with the duty of determining whether the proof is sufficient to warrant admission of the copy to record. Budd v. Brooke, 3 Gill 198, 232, 43 Am.Dec. 321; Beatty v. Mason, 30 Md. 409, 413. The purpose of the record is to furnish a controlling guide for the Orphans' Court in granting letters of administration cum testamento annexo and in settling and distributing the estate. Dalrymple v. Gamble, 66 Md. 298, 312, 7 A. 683, 8 A. 468. The policy of our law is to give full force and effect to every authenticated record of probate in another State evidencing a will disposing of property in Maryland. Any such will and probate, when authenticated according to the statute and recorded by the Register of Wills, stands upon the same footing as wills made by residents of Maryland and admitted to probate by the Orphans' Courts of this State. Johns Hopkins University v. Uhrig, 145 Md. 114, 120, 125 A. 606.

It is a universal principle of the common law that the formalities necessary for transfer of real estate, whether inter vivos or testamentary, are governed by the lex loci rei sitae, irrespective of the lex domicilii. Lindsay v. Wilson, 103 Md. 252, 265, 63 A. 566, 2 L.R.A.,N.S., 408; Robertson v. Pickrell, 109 U.S. 608, 3 S.Ct. 407, 27 L.Ed. 1049. The State has plenary power to determine the manner in which real estate within its borders may be conveyed or devised, and to prescribe the manner of administration of estates of deceased persons as to all property within its jurisdiction. Parnell v. Thompson, 81 Kan. 119, 105 P. 502, 33 L.R.A.,N.S., 658; Hines v. Hines, 243 Mo. 480, 147 S.W. 774. In determining the validity of a devise of real estate situated in Maryland, our law governs as to the execution of the will and the testator's capacity to make the will, and no devise is valid unless made and proved in the mode prescribed by the laws of this State. Rackemann v. Taylor, 204 Mass. 394, 90 N.E. 552; Payne v. Payne, 239 Ky. 99, 39 S.W.2d 205; Ford v. Ford, 70 Wis. 19, 33 N.W. 188, 194, 5 Am.St.Rep. 117; McCormick v. Sullivant, 10 Wheat. 192, 6 L.Ed. 300.

It is manifest that the courts of a State cannot affect persons and things beyond their jurisdiction. Stacy v.

Thrasher, 6 How. 44, 61, 12 L.Ed. 337, 344. By mandate of art. 4, sec. 1, of the Constitution of the United States, full faith and credit must be given in each State to the public acts, records and judicial proceedings of every other State. The Act of Congress implementing the full faith and credit clause requires that records duly authenticated shall have such faith and credit given to them in every court within the United States as they have by law or usage in the courts of the State from which they are taken. 28 U.S.C.A. § 687. 'But,' as Justice Story said, 'this does not prevent an inquiry into the jurisdiction of the Court in which the original judgment was rendered to pronounce the judgment, nor an inquiry into the right of the State to exercise authority over the parties or the subject-matter, nor an inquiry whether the judgment is founded in and impeachable for a manifest fraud. The Constitution did not mean to confer any new power upon the States, but simply to regulate the effect of their acknowledged jurisdiction over persons and things within their territory.' Story, Conflict of Laws, 8th Edition, sec. 609. We hold that a judgment rendered in one State cannot be challenged in a sister State on the ground of errors in the record, except such as prove that the court had no jurisdiction of the case, or that the entry of the judgment was beyond its power. Kurtz v. Stenger, 169 Md. 554, 182 A. 456; Coane v. Girard Trust Co., Md., 35 A.2d 449. Chief Justice Stone recently reaffirmed the principle in Magnolia Petroleum Co. v. Hunt, 64 S.Ct. 208, 212, in these words: 'In the case of local law, since each of the states of the Union has constitutional authority to make its own law with respect to persons and events within its borders, the full faith and credit clause does not ordinarily require it to...