Fitzsimmons v. Johnson

90 Tenn. 416
CourtTennessee Supreme Court
DecidedJune 9, 1891
StatusPublished
Cited by26 cases

This text of 90 Tenn. 416 (Fitzsimmons v. Johnson) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Tennessee Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Fitzsimmons v. Johnson, 90 Tenn. 416 (Tenn. 1891).

Opinion

Caldwell, J.

John W. Todd died, testate, at his residence in Clermont County, Ohio, in the early part of the year 1864. He nominated his friends, John Johnson and C. W. Goyer, of Memphis, Tennessee, as executors of his will. They accepted the trust, went to Ohio, and, on April 27, 1864, were duly qualified by the Probate Court of Clermont County as executors of the will.

On November 6, 1865, the executors made what purported to be a final settlement of the estate of their testator, showing that they had received assets to the amount of $63,495.25, and that, of this, they had paid to the widow of the testator, as sole distributee, $61,040.10, and that the other $2,455.15 had been used in the payment of debts and expenses of administration. This settlement [420]*420was made in tito Probate Court of Clermont County, Ohio, on whose record the following entry was made: “This day the Court examined the accounts and vouchers of C. W. Goyer and John Johnson, executors of the estate of John W. Todd, deceased, and found the same to he in all tilings correct; that they have been regularly advertised for exceptions, and none having been filed thereto, the same are hereby approved and confirmed. And the Court finds that said executors have paid all just claims against said estate, and have distributed the remainder according to the will of the testator. And ' the said accounts are ordered to be recorded, and the executors are discharged.”

The testator left no children or representatives of children. By the first ten clauses of his will he expressed certain desires, which need not be mentioned in this opinion, and made provision for his widow; and by the eleventh clause he devised and bequeathed the residuum of his estate, both real and personal, to his four sisters and one brother. The provision made for the widow proved unsatisfactory to her; hence, she failed to accept it. And her non-acceptance had the same legal effect under the Ohio law that an affirmative dissent has under our law. She had the same claims upon her husband’s estate as she would have had if he had died intestate.

The executors assumed that she was entitled to the whole of his personal estate after the payment [421]*421of debts and expenses, and upon that assumption they paid her the $61,040.10.

Such had been, the statute law of Ohio, but it was changed, so as to allow the widow only one-third of her husband’s net personal estate, a few years before the final settlement.

On January 15, 1887, Mary A. Fitzsimmons, one of the residuary legatees, filed her petition in error, in the Court of Common Pleas of Clermont County, Ohio, for the purpose of having the judgment of the Probate Court reviewed and reversed. G-oyer having died in the meantime, Johnson alone, as surviving executor, was made defendant to this petition. The petition was accompanied with an affidavit that Johnson was a non-resident of the State of Ohio, and could not, therefore, be personally served with summons, that he had no attorney •of record in the State, and that it was a proper case for publication. Thereupon publication was made' for Johnson, as a non-resident, requiring him to appear and plead to the petition; and a copy of a newspaper containing the published notice was sent to him at his residence in Memphis, Tennessee.

Johnson made default, and on January 20, 1888, the petition in error was heard in the Court of Common Pleas, and the judgment of the Probate Court was reversed and set aside, and the cause was remanded to the Probate Court for further proceedings. After the remand, Mrs. Fitzsimmons and Mrs. Young, another of the residuary legatees, appeared in the Probate Court and filed exceptions [422]*422to the accounts of Goyer and Johnson, which had been confirmed by that Court in 1865. These. exceptions were set for hearing, and a copy thereof, together with a notice of the time and' place of hearing the same by the Court,, was mailed to Johnson at Memphis.

Johnson again failed to appear. The exceptions were sustained, and, on February 2, 1 888, the Probate Court adjudged that the executors had-been improperly credited ' in the former settlement with the $61,040.10 paid the widow, and that they had received $30,000 besides, which they had not reported or accounted for in any way. The Court further adjudged that these two sums, together with interest thereon, in all $130,640, remained, or should be, in the hands of the executors for distribution; and it.was ordered that Johnson, as surviving executor, proceed to distribute said sum of. $130,640 according to the will of John W. Todd, deceased, and according, to law.

That judgment is the principal ground of the present action. On March 28, 1888, Mrs. Fitzsim-mons and the other four residuar’y legatees, by themselves and their representatives, filed this bill in the Chancery Court at Memphis, to recover from Johnson, as surviving executor, and from the estate of Goyer, the deceased executor, the said $130,640, and other sums alleged to have been received by the same persons as executors of John ’W. Todd’s estate in Tennessee.

The Chancellor dismissed the bill on demurrer, [423]*423so far as relief was sought on the Ohio record, hut retained it for other purposes, to he hereafter stated. After final decree on the merits of the other branch of the cause, both complainants and defendants appealed to this Court. All material questions raised in the Chancery Court are presented here hy assignments of error.

Was that pai’t of the hill seeking relief on the judgment of the Probate Court in Ohio properly dismissed ?

The main ground of demurrer to that part of the hill was want of jurisdiction in that Court to ■pronounce the judgment.

The question of the Court’s jurisdiction of the subject-matter need not be discussed or elaborated, for, by the statute of Ohio, her Probate Courts are given general jurisdiction to settle the accounts of executors and administrators, and to direct distribution of balance found in their hands. Jurisdiction of the subject-matter was, therefore, ample and complete. Rev. Stat. Ohio, See. 534.

Whether the Court had jurisdiction of the person of Johnson is not so easily answered.

It is conceded in the bill and recited on the face of the record that. Coyer was dead, and that Johnson, the surviving executor, was not personally served with notice, either of the appellate proceedings in the Court of Common Pleas or of the subsequent proceedings in the Probate Court, which resulted in the judgment sued on; and that, being a non-resident, and without an attorney of [424]*424record in the State, only publication was made for him.

It is now well settled that a personal judgment against a non-resident, rendered in an original suit, upon constructive notice — that is, upon notice hy publication merely — is an absolute nullity, and 'of no effect whatever. Though a State may adopt any rules of practice and legal procedure she may deem best as to her own citizens, she can adopt none that will give her Courts jurisdiction of nonresidents so as to authorize personal judgments against them without personal service of process upon them.

By personal judgments we mean judgments in personam — as, for payment of money — in contradistinction from judgments in rem,

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Bluebook (online)
90 Tenn. 416, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/fitzsimmons-v-johnson-tenn-1891.