Beaumont v. Beaumont

144 F. 288, 1906 U.S. App. LEXIS 4700
CourtU.S. Circuit Court for the District of New Jersey
DecidedMarch 21, 1906
StatusPublished
Cited by3 cases

This text of 144 F. 288 (Beaumont v. Beaumont) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering U.S. Circuit Court for the District of New Jersey primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Beaumont v. Beaumont, 144 F. 288, 1906 U.S. App. LEXIS 4700 (circtdnj 1906).

Opinion

FANNING, District Judge.

The defendant insists that the verdict in this case should be set aside on the ground that an executor or administrator cannot bring suit in a federal court in a district not within the state in which the letters testamentary or of administration were granted. In the present case the plaintiff received her letters of administration in the state of Pennsylvania. While the objection was not raised at the trial, and is now presented for the first time, it will be dealt with on its merits without regard to the question of waiver. Authorities need not be cited to the effect that an executor or administrator cannot bring suit outside of the state in which his letters were granted, without statutory authority in the state where suit is brought. The Legislature of New Jersey has granted such statutory authority. On April 9, 1887 (P. L. 1887, p. 154. being an amendment of the act in P. L. 1879, p. 28), an act was approved providing:

"That any executor or administrator, by virtue of letters obtained in another state may prosecute any action or sue out execution upon any judgment or decree in any court of this state as if his letters had been granted in this state; provided, that such executor or administrator shall first file in the oliice of the clerk of the court in whieh he is about to proceed an exemplified cojiy of his letters,” etc.

On March 26, 1896 (P. L. 1896, p. 173), another act was approved, the material part of the first section of which is as follows:

‘‘Any executor or administrator, by virtue of letters obtained in another state, may prosecute any action or sue out execution upon Judgment or decree in any court of this state as if his letters had been granted in this state; provided, that, such executor or administrator shall first file in the oiliee of the register of the prerogative court an exemplified copy of his letters, and upon such tiling may bring all necessary actions in any of the courts of this state,” etc.

Assuming that the acts of 1887 and 1896 are both operative, the plaintiff in this case, before commencing suit, filed an exemplified copy of her letters in the office of the clerk of this court, and also in the office of the register of the prerogative court of the stale of New Jersey'. The point of the defendant’s objection is that these acts authorize a plaintiff who has complied with their provisions to bring suit not in any federal court, but only in a court of the state of New Jersey. I consider the objection unsound. In Lawrence v. Nelson, 143 U. S. 215, 12 Sup. Ct. 410, 36 L. Ed. 130, it appears that an administrator who had obtained his letters in the state of Illinois filed a bill of review in the United States Circuit Coxirt for the Eastern District of Arkansas, for the purpose of having that court set aside a decree. previously entered by it against the administrator in a suit in which the administrator, though a resident of Illinois and not of [290]*290Arkansas, had voluntarily entered appearance. The bill of review was dismissed for want of equity, leaving the original decree against the Illinois administrator in full force and effect. Thereafter, the holders of the original decree filed a bill in equity in the Circuit Court of the United States for the Northern District of Illinois against the administrator, seeking to charge him, as administrator appointed in Illinois, with the amount of the decree recovered against him in the Circuit Court of the United States for the Eastern District of Arkansas. The bill was demurred to by the administrator for want of equity. The demurrer was overruled, and, on an appeal to the Supreme Court of the United States, that court raised the query whether the original decree could have been sustained if an appeal had been taken directly from it, in view of the general rule that an administrator’s power to act, as well as his duty to account, is limited to the state from whose courts he derives his authority. “But,” said the court, “the case does not rest'there. The statutes of Arkansas provide that ‘administrators and executors appointed in any of the states, territories or' districts of the United States under the laws thereof may sue in any of the courts of this state in their representative capacity to the same and like effect as if such administrators and executors had been qualified under the laws of this state.’ ”

In commenting on the action of the Illinois administrator in filing his bill of review in the United States Circuit Court for the Eastern District of Arkansas, the Supreme Court said:

. “In filing a bill to have the former decree set aside, upon the ground that it should not have been rendered against him as an Illinois administrator, he became himself the actor and submitted that question to a court of competent jurisdiction, and its decision upon that question, whether favorable or adverse to him, was equally conclusive of the matter adjudged.”

And in Hayes v. Pratt, 147 U. S. 557, 13 Sup. Ct. 503, 37 L. Ed. 279, it appears that a Pennsylvania executor brought suit in the New Jersey court of chancery against a citizen of New Jersey. The defendant removed the case to this court, whose decree was appealed to the Supreme Court. ’The latter court upheld the jurisdiction of this court, against the objection that a Pennsylvania executor could not sue in New Jersey. The fact that that case was begun in the state court does not seem to me to be material. It certainly would not be, had the removal been made under the provisions of the present removal act of August 13, 1888, instead of the removal act of March 3, 1875, Tennessee v. Union & Planters’ Bank, 152 U. S. 454, 14 Sup. Ct. 654, 38 L. Ed. 511; Mexican National Railroad v. Davidson, 157 U. S. 201, 15 Sup. Ct. 563, 39 L. Ed. 672; Boston, etc. Mining Company v. Montana Ore Company, 188 U. S. at page 640, 23 Sup. Ct. 434, 47 L. Ed. 626; and Cochran v. Montgomery County, 199 U. S. at page 273, 26 Sup. Ct. 58, 50 L. Ed. -.

The defendant’s second ground for setting aside the verdict is, to quote the language embodied in the reasons filed in the cause:

“Because any right of the plaintiff to maintain an action as administra-trix of Lucius S. Beaumont, deceased, was suspended by the appeal proved to have been taken from the decree refusing an issue on the legality of her appointment as such administratrix.”

[291]*291The case shows that an appeal of some kind was taken on November 27, 1905, while the cause in this court was in course of trial, from the orphans’ court of Butler county, Pa., to the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania. The only proof concerning' this appeal is a certificate of the prothouotary of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, dated November 27, 1905, certifying:

“That on the 27th day of November. x\nno Domini one thousand nine hundred and five, the appeal oí Charles Beaumont, John L. TSoaixmont, George A. Beaumont, Olive A. ITatt and Mary E. Gilbert, from the decree of the orphans’ court of the county of Bntler, in the state aforesaid, at Number .10 of June term, 1905, in re estate of Lucius 8.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
144 F. 288, 1906 U.S. App. LEXIS 4700, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/beaumont-v-beaumont-circtdnj-1906.