Yarboro v. Brewster

• Decision Date: 01 January 1873
• Citation: 38 Tex. 397
• Parties: T. P. YARBORO ET AL. v. ELIZABETH BREWSTER.
• Court: Texas Supreme Court

38 Tex. 397

T. P. YARBORO ET AL.

v.ELIZABETH BREWSTER.

Supreme Court of Texas.

1873.

In the administration of an estate the probate court has jurisdiction to ascertain what is the homestead; yet the court has no jurisdiction to order the sale of the homestead, nor would a purchaser at such sale take any right as against the minor children.

APPEAL from Fannin. Tried below before the Hon. W. H. Andrews.

The opinion of the court presents the facts.S. B. Maxey, for appellants. The claimants are non-residents. Huffman v. Neuhaus, 30 Tex. 636;Welch v?? Rice, 31 Tex. 688.

The jurisdiction of probate courts over estates of decedents is unquestioned.

In Lynch v. Baxter, 4 Tex., Mr. Justice Lipscomb, speaking for the court, says, on page 445, that the probate court has jurisdiction over the estates of deceased persons cannot be doubted; that this jurisdiction was brought into exercise directly upon the property by the petitioner praying the decree for an order of sale of the land, is equally clear. The land was the subject matter on which the court exercised its jurisdiction; whatever might be the order, it was a question before a competent court, and its decision was subject to review by appeal, but could not be attacked in a collateral way. That it was a proceeding in rem can be made manifest by supposing that the heirs of the intestate had sued Lynch, the purchaser, and attempted to show that this judgment or decree for the sale of the land was void, because they had no notice and were not parties to the proceedings of the probate court. The answer would be that it was not necessary to make them parties, because the proceedings were in rem, acting on the land directly, and that the decree of the court could not be collaterally attacked; * * and the purchaser, having purchased without fraud or collusion with the administrator, would be protected by the sale, if the decree under which it was made was the decree of a court of competent jurisdiction.

This would come clearly within the rule laid down in Wyman et al. v. Campbell et al., and the purchaser would not be affected by any irregularity in the proceedings or error in the judgment of the court in making that decree; all the vigilance the law would exact from him would be to see that the court making the decree had competent jurisdiction, and he could not be called upon to inquire whether the evidence before the judge of the necessity of the sale had been spread on the record or not. To the same effect see 1 Stark. Ev. pp. 217, 241.

In the same opinion the court says: “I have been so forcibly struck with the practical good sense of the remarks of the supreme court of Ohio on this subject that I trust I shall be pardoned for introducing them here. In the case of the Lessee of Goforth v. Longworth, 4 Ohio, 129, the court says: ‘It is held to be well settled that courts give a liberal construction to statutes authorizing sales of real estate by executors and administrators. Public policy requires that all reasonable presumptions should be made in support of such sales, especially respecting matters in pais. The number of titles thus derived, and the too frequent inaccuracy of clerks and others concerned in effecting these sales, render this necessary. If a different rule prevailed purchasers would be timid, and estates consequently be sold at diminished value, to the prejudice of heirs and creditors.’ 'DD'

I have transcribed largely from Lynch v. Baxter, because it breathes the philosophy of the law on the matter in hand, and I believe exactly pertinent to this case. The estate of Grimes being in process of administration in the probate court of Fannin county, its jurisdiction was brought directly in exercise upon this land by the petition for its sale. It was a proceeding in rem, acting directly on the land, and the decree ordering its sale and confirming the same cannot be collaterally attacked. The purchasers were not bound to know more than that the probate court of Fannin county had jurisdiction of the estate of James Grimes; that it had rendered a decree ordering the sale of the land; and they could not be called on to know that the evidence on which the decree was rendered was sufficient. If this was a homestead, or plaintiffs were entitled, the proof would have been by matters in pais, and all law justifies the purchasers in concluding that all facts necessary to uphold the decree existed.

In Grignon's Lessee v. Astor, the supreme court of the United States held that where a county court had jurisdiction to order a sale of a decedent's estate, on the representation and finding of certain facts, and the record showed that a petition was presented and the order made, that the granting of the license was a binding adjudication; that all facts necessary to give jurisdiction as well as to warrant the license existed, and that the record was conclusive evidence thereof. 2 How. 319. In the same case the court says: “Titles acquired under the proceedings of courts of competent jurisdiction must be deemed inviolable in collateral actions, or none can know what is his own; and there are no judicial sales around which greater sanctity ought to be placed than those made of the estates of decedents by order of those courts to whom the laws of the states confide full jurisdiction over the subjects.” This is quoted approvingly in Poor v. Boyce, 12 Tex. 451. In this case, on page 449, the court says: “The petition of the administratrix gave the court jurisdiction. Finch v. Edmundson, 9 Tex. 504. All other questions, in the absence of fraud, are concluded by the judgment.” Now if the jurisdiction was acquired by the petition, then in this case it was acquired, because the petition for sale was filed; and if all other questions, in the absence of fraud, are concluded by the judgment, then the questions raised by plaintiffs are concluded, for there was no fraud.

In Burdett v. Silsbee, 15 Tex. 617, Mr. Justice Wheeler, speaking for the court, quotes with great approbation McPherson v. Cauliff, 11 Serg. & R. 422,as follows: “If such a purchaser” (a purchaser at a sale by order of the orphan's court) “is not protected,” they say, “then, as was said by the lord keeper in Windham v. Windham, 3 Ch. 12, where a like attack was made on a sale under a decree of a court of chancery, you ‘blow up with gunpowder the whole jurisdiction;’ and here, if protection be denied to honest purchasers, you lay a train of gunpowder throughout the whole state, and this decision would be a signal to set fire to it; for nothing has been more irregular than the practice of these courts generally; there may be exceptions, but they are very rare.” This case of McPherson v. Cauliff was referred to approvingly by the supreme court of the United States in Thompson v. Tolmie, 2 Pet. 157et seq. In this last case the court says: “If the purchaser was responsible for the mistakes of the court, in point of fact, after they had adjudicated upon the facts and acted upon them, these sales would be snares to honest men. The purchaser is not bound to look further back than the order of the court.” 15 Tex. 618. Now the court had jurisdiction, and therefore had a right to pass upon the facts, and although it may have committed a mistake as to the facts, yet the purchaser was not bound to look beyond the decree. In Elliott v. Piersol, 1 Pet. 340, the court says: “When a court has jurisdiction it has a right to decide every question that occurs in the case, and whether its decision be correct or not its judgment, until reversed, is regarded as binding in every other court.” This is quoted with approbation by our supreme court in Burdett v. Silsbee, 15 Tex. 518, 619, and the court adds: “This is declared to be the clear and well settled law, as applied to the decisions of county and other courts having cognizance of the settlement of estates;” and our court, in the same opinion, says these principles are “salutary and firmly established, on which depend not only the certainty of the enjoyment of rights secured by the sacred guaranty of the constitution, but the preservation of social order.” If these principles are salutary and firmly established, then appellants will be left in the undisturbed enjoyment of their honestly acquired property. In Alexander v. Maverick, 18 Tex. 194, this court quotes with approbation Tucker v. Harris, 13 Geo. 1. That case decides that courts of ordinary (constituted as are our probate courts) are “courts of general jurisdiction over testate and intestate estates; that their judgments relative to that subject matter stand upon the same footing as the judgments of any other court of general jurisdiction.” “The jurisdiction being established,” the court says, “all presumption must be made in favor of what does not appear. The court having the right to decide upon the application, the purchaser is not bound to go behind the judgment of the court.”

Now this decision reduces the case in hand to a nutshell.

Did the probate court of Fannin county have a right to decide upon the application of the administrator of Grimes? Did it exercise that right? If these questions are answered affirmatively, as they are bound to be, then the purchasers are not bound to go behind the judgment of the court, and the appellants will not be molested. In the case above cited of Tucker v. Harris, Judge Lumpkin, who delivered the opinion, cites Kennedy v. Nach Smith, in which the court says: “Beyond the decree the purchaser is not bound to look. The inquiries upon ejectment are: Was there an administrator and order to sell, such as would authorize the administrator to make sale? Was the sale fair? If so, the settled rule is de fide et officio judicis non recipitur quæstio. And it is asserted that no sale in that state ever has been declared void in ejectment, against a purchaser bona fide, for any alleged irregularity in the orphan's court, or because the decree of the court was founded on mistake.”...