Spencer v. Watkins

• Decision Date: 08 April 1909
• Docket Number: 2,860.
• Citation: 169 F. 379
• Parties: SPENCER et al. v. WATKINS et al.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Eighth Circuit

169 F. 379

SPENCER et al. v. WATKINS et al.

No. 2,860.

United States Court of Appeals, Eighth Circuit.

April 8, 1909

Edward F. Treadwell (A. E. Macartney, N. H. Clapp, and George H Mastick, on the brief), for appellants.

Frank B. Kellogg (C. A. Severance and Robert E. Olds, on the brief), for appellees.

Before VAN DEVANTER, HOOK, and ADAMS, Circuit Judges.

HOOK Circuit Judge.

This was a suit by heirs at law of Fanny S. Wilder, deceased, to defeat a charitable bequest in her will upon the ground that it was void under the laws of the state of Minnesota, where she was domiciled, and for the allotment to them of the property embraced in the bequest. It was brought against the executors and the 'A H. Wilder Charity, Founded by Fanny S. Wilder,' a charitable corporation organized to accept the bequest by trustees named in the will and conformably to directions therein. The trustees themselves were also made parties defendant. The ground of federal jurisdiction was diversity of citizenship. The cause having been submitted upon the pleadings and stipulated facts, the Circuit Court held with the defendants and dismissed complainants' bill. The court was of opinion that prior litigation in the courts of the state involved the same question, that the heirs had participated therein, had been heard, and were defeated, and consequently the judgments of those courts barred further controversy. The heirs prosecuted this appeal. The defendants say the Circuit Court did not have jurisdiction of the cause, but that, if it did, its decree dismissing the bill was right.

It is said, in substance, that the Circuit Court was without jurisdiction, because the suit was not one at common law or in equity, within the meaning of the Constitution of the United States and the judiciary act, but, on the contrary was of a probate character, and pertained to the administration of an estate of a deceased person, of which the local probate court was invested with exclusive cognizance by the Constitution and statutes of the state. See Appleby v. Watkins, 95 Minn. 455, 104 N.W. 301.

If the case was not one of probate or administration within the proper meaning of those terms, but in nature and form was one at law or in equity, the right of the heirs to invoke the jurisdiction of the Circuit Court is not affected by the law of the state. Jurisdiction of cases in law and equity involving controversies between citizens of different states was conferred by the Constitution upon the courts of the United States; and the laws of Congress, passed in pursuance of the Constitution, creating the courts inferior to the Supreme Court, and defining and distributing the jurisdiction, have given the Circuit Courts original cognizance of such cases. Nothing is more clearly settled than that the jurisdiction so conferred cannot be defeated or impaired by the laws of a state regulating the distribution of its own judicial power among its own courts. When this is asserted to have been done, the inquiry always turns to the intrinsic character of the controversy, and if, when viewed in the light of recognized principles of jurisprudence, it appears to be a suit of a civil nature at common law or in equity, it matters not that by local statute exclusive cognizance has been in terms reserved to the courts of the state generally, or to some specially designated local tribunal. This must, of necessity, be so; otherwise, the judicial power of the United States, as understood at the adoption of the Constitution, would have no uniform or permanent measure, but would depend upon the varying legislative action of the several states, and as to that founded on diversity of citizenship the tendency would be towards its extinction by absorption in the exclusive jurisdiction of the local tribunals. The equity jurisdiction conferred by the Constitution upon the courts of the United States is the same as that then possessed by the High Court of Chancery in England in its judicial capacity, as distinguished from the jurisdiction of a political or governmental character which was exercised by the Chancellor as the representative of the crown. It is uniform throughout the United States, not differing in one state from that in another, and is subject to neither limitation nor restraint by state legislation. True, where a state gives a remedy, not theretofore existing, by civil action in its courts of general jurisdiction, such remedy may also be had in the courts of the United States, if consistent with their forms and modes of procedure; but that is an extension or enlargement of jurisdiction, and not a limitation or impairment.

It is quite true that, if the controversy before us was purely one relating to probate or administration, the Circuit Court was without jurisdiction; but was the case of that character? The right to take property by inheritance or by will is not a natural right, but is a privilege which is the creature of the law. The power to authorize and regulate the disposal and distribution of property at death rests with the state, and it may impose such conditions as may be deemed necessary to its interests and policy as the sovereign. So in a sense the estate of a deceased person is without an owner until the way has been cleared by the execution of the laws regulating its devolution. The state, by its court of probate, therefore, steps in and takes possession; and the proceedings in such court to prove and establish an instrument as the will of the deceased duly made according to the statute, in the granting of letters testamentary and of administration, and in the usual administration which precedes the delivery of an estate according to the testamentary directions of the testator, or according to the prescribed rule of distribution in case of intestacy, partake of the character of proceedings in rem, to which all the world are parties.

Though much that is done is in form ex parte, yet because of the custody of the estate and the nature of the proceedings every one is bound. Jurisdiction over the probating of wills and the granting of administrations, which was formerly in the ancient ecclesiastical courts of England, has fallen to the modern probate courts, where, generally speaking, it is exclusively exercised. In some states, as in Minnesota, the statutes have added much that was formerly cognizable in the form of ordinary suits at law or in equity in courts of general jurisdiction; but it is manifest that in doing so they are dealing with that which may also be subject to the judicial power of the United States. Statutes of that character may very properly regulate the jurisdiction of the courts of the states, but they cannot restrict that of the courts of the United States. Security Trust Co. v. Bank, 187 U.S. 211, 227, 23 Sup.Ct. 52, 47 L.Ed. 147.

We think that a controversy like that before us is not one strictly pertaining to probate and administration, but, on the contrary, has every element of a plenary suit inter partes, and that it belongs to a class of which the English courts of chancery were accustomed to take cognizance as involving the execution of trusts. 3 Pomeroy's Eq. Juris § 1127. The suit of the heirs was not a will contest in the customary acceptation of that phrase. No question was involved that would properly arise at the presentation of a will for admission to probate. The heirs did not seek to annul the probate of the will in question. They did not challenge the testamentary capacity of the testatrix or the sufficiency as to authentication or form of the written expression of her testamentary purposes. On the contrary, it was averred in their bill of complaint and admitted in the answer that the instruments in question had been duly admitted to probate as the last will and testament of the deceased, and that letters testamentary had been duly issued to the defendant executors. It was likewise averred and admitted that all allowable debts and claims had been paid, all bequests preceding that of the residuary estate had been discharged, the estate had been fully administered up to the time for final...