Wilson v. Hartford Fire Ins. Co.

• Decision Date: 02 November 1908
• Docket Number: 2,789.
• Citation: 164 F. 817
• Parties: WILSON v. HARTFORD FIRE INS. CO.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Eighth Circuit

164 F. 817

WILSON v. HARTFORD FIRE INS. CO.

No. 2,789.

United States Court of Appeals, Eighth Circuit.

November 2, 1908

Syllabus by the Court

There is no privity between the executors of the will of a decedent appointed in one state and an administrator with the same will annexed appointed in another state, nor between the administrators of the estate of an intestate appointed in different states.

Estoppels in favor of or against such executors or administrators in one state, by judgments or by the administration statutes of limitation of that state, do not bind or affect an administrator with the will annexed, or an administrator of an intestate appointed in another state, or a claimant against such representatives.

Administration in the state of the domicile of the decedent does not govern the administration of the property of a decedent in any other state.

A claim against the estate of a decedent in the hands of an administrator with the will annexed in one state is not barred because it was not presented and has become barred against the estate of the decedent in the hands of the domiciliary executors of the same will in another state.

Charles Blood Smith (John E. Hessin, W. H. Rossington, and W. R Smith, on the brief), for plaintiff in error.

Charles C. Arnold, for defendant in error.

Before SANBORN and VAN DEVANTER, Circuit Judges, and AMIDON District judge.

SANBORN Circuit Judge.

Is a claim against the estate of a deceased testator which is barred in the state of his domicile because it was not presented for allowance within the time fixed therefor by the administration statutes of that state thereby barred in another state in which an administrator with the will annexed is proceeding to administer upon property of the testator in the latter state? The court below answered this question in the negative, and this ruling is assigned as error.

Charles P. Dewey, a resident of the state of Illinois, made a will by which he appointed Chauncey Dewey and Charles T. Killen its executors, and on June 10, 1904, he died, owing the Hartford Fire Insurance Company, a corporation of the state of Connecticut, $21,500 and some interest. His will was proved in the probate court of Cook county, the executors qualified therein, and such proceedings were had that the time within which, under the administration statutes of Illinois, such a claim could be presented for allowance against the estate, expired without any presentation of the claim. The laws of Illinois provided that in such a case claims not presented should be forever barred. Meanwhile the defendant below, Clyde Wilson, had been appointed administrator with the will annexed of the estate of Dewey in the state of Kansas by the probate court of Riley county in that state, and he was proceeding to administer upon the property of the deceased therein. After the time to present its claim for allowance in Illinois had expired, and before the time for its presentation in Kansas, in accordance with the terms of the administration statutes of that state, had run, the insurance company brought an action in the court below against the Kansas administrator to recover the amount of its claim out of the property of the deceased in that state. The contention of counsel for the administrator is that the claim of the insurance company is barred in Illinois, that the estate of the testator is governed by the laws of that state because it was the state of his domicile, that there is a privity between the Illinois executors and the Kansas administrator, and that as the claim is barred against the former it is also barred as against the latter. But the property of the estate which is situated in Kansas is not controlled nor is its administration or distribution governed by the laws of the domicile of the testator. The laws of Illinois have no extraterritorial force, and they are powerless in the state of Kansas. The property of the estate of the testator in that state is subject to and it must be administered and distributed in accordance with the laws of the state of its situs. Under the statutes of Kansas the property of deceased persons in that state, whether they were residents or nonresidents, is subject to the payment of their debts due to citizens of other states to the same extent as it is to the payment of those owing to its own citizens (Gen. St. Kan. 1901, Secs. 2825, 2891, 2893, 2907, 2503), and there is a law of that state which reads:

'When administration shall be granted in this state on the estate of any person who at the time of his decease was an inhabitant of any other state or country, such estate shall be administered and distributed according to the laws of this state; and the balance in the hands of the administrator on final settlement, to which the foreign executor or administrator of said deceased may be entitled, shall be paid over to such foreign executor or administrator upon the order of the court.'

The effect of this legislation is that the application of the Kansas property of a deceased nonresident of that state, whether testate or intestate, to the payment of his debts, is governed exclusively by the laws of Kansas, and the laws of his domicile can have no effect upon any part of that property until those debts have been ascertained and paid.

The only part of the Kansas property upon which the statutes of the domicile of this decedent may have effect is the residue after the payment of the debts, and upon that, not because of the force of the laws of Illinois, but because the statute of Kansas permits that residue to be sent to the foreign executor or administrator by the express provision of section 2980. Thus it conclusively appears that the administration and distribution of the Kansas property of deceased nonresidents is governed by the laws of Kansas, and not by the laws of their domicile.

Is there such a privity between the domiciliary executors of the will of a deceased person and the administrator with the will annexed of the property of such a person in another state that a bar of a claim against the former bars it against the latter? Section 4450 of the General Statutes of Kansas of 1901 reads:

'Where the cause of action has arisen in another state or country, between non-residents of this state, and by the laws of the state or country where the cause of action arose an action cannot be maintained thereon by reason of lapse of time, no action maintained thereon in this state.'

But has the cause of action which the insurance company here presses arisen in another state or country? A proceeding in a probate court to administer upon the estate of a deceased person is a proceeding in rem, not in personam. The property within the jurisdiction of the court is the defendant, the executor or administrator is its representative, and all claiming any interest in that property under the deceased are parties to the proceeding. Grignon's Lessee v. Astor, 2 How. 319, 337, 11 L.Ed. 283; Sheldon's Lessee v. Newton, 3 Ohio St. 494, 503. The probate court of Illinois and the executors which it appointed had no jurisdiction to administer or to distribute any property beyond the limits of that state, because the statutes which gave them their authority were ineffective beyond its boundaries. The property of the estate of the deceased in that state, and that alone, therefore, was the defendant, and the executors represented no other. In the proceeding in Kansas the real defendant is the property of the estate of the decedent in that state, and the administrator with the will annexed is the representative of that property and of no other. In other words, the defendant in the administration in Illinois was the property of the deceased in that state, which alone the executors represented, and not the property of the estate in Kansas; and the defendant in the administration in Kansas is the property of the deceased in that state, which alone the administrator with the will annexed represents. Now, no cause of action against the deceased arose in his lifetime, because his obligations to the insurance company did not mature until after his death. No cause of action against his property in Kansas, the only defendant in the instant suit, arose after his death either in the state of Illinois or in any other jurisdiction outside of the state of Kansas, because no court or officer beyond the limits of Kansas ever had any jurisdiction to adjudge or enforce any such cause. The only cause of action, therefore, which was barred by the failure of the insurance company to present its claim in due time in Illinois was its cause of action against the property of the deceased in that state.

That cause of action never existed, and never was judicable in Kansas, so that in the state of Kansas the bar of the Illinois...