The Boston

3 F. Cas. 918, 1832 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 14
CourtDistrict Court, S.D. New York
DecidedOctober 19, 1832
StatusPublished
Cited by2 cases

This text of 3 F. Cas. 918 (The Boston) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, S.D. New York primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
The Boston, 3 F. Cas. 918, 1832 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 14 (S.D.N.Y. 1832).

Opinion

BETTS, District Judge.

The right of Nutt, the claimant, to intervene, is contested by the libellants in both causes, because he received his appointment as administrator from a foreign jurisdiction, and did not acquire thereby a persona standi in this court. It might be sufficient to say, in answer to this objection, that the suits being in rem, and the vessel having been sold and the proceeds brought into court, the libellants must satisfy the court affirmatively of their right to withdraw the funds, before they will be decreed in satisfaction of the suits, whatever may be the legal rights of the claimant thereto. Had the objection been raised when the claimant first entered an appearance, the court would have been bound to determine his competency to contest the suits. If that decision had been adverse to him, the only consequence would have been a change of parties to the record, or a decree of condemnation and sale of the vessel as by default, and the deposit of the proceeds in court'; and, when the libellants sought satisfaction out of the proceeds, the court would, at the mere suggestion of any party showing a slight color of interest, have required evidence of their title, beyond the defaults, before the moneys would have been paid to them. If, then, the foreign administration with which the claimant is clothed, is not deemed sufficient authority for him to interfere with and control the progress of the suits, it would' entitle him to intervene as a petitioner, praying that the funds in court may be reserved for the legal representatives of the owner of the vessel, and to put-in question the right of the libellants to receive them. The court would feel no difficulty in allowing an administrator, who received his appointment at the place of the owner’s domicil, to interfere thus far with respect to proceedings against a vessel not arrested at her home port, and in granting all necessary indulgence to enable the estate to become formally represented in the action. But I am not aware of any benefit a new arrangement of parties would afford. The objection is merely technical, and, if sustained, the only consequence will be an order to reform the pleadings, by substituting an administrator with a New-York appointment. The case is now fully before the court, and a longer delay does not promise advantage to any party. I am disposed to admit the intervention of the foreign administrator to have been proper, at least in so far as his acts may be regarded as invoking the court to retain the funds until the libellants give full evidence of their right to them.

There is less reason to notice objections to the capacity of the administrator to make himself a party to the suits, because, it being yet doubtful whether the fund in court is adequate to the demands of both suits, the libellants stand as antagonist suitors with respect to each other, as well as to the administrator. They have not only impliedly waived their right to object to the claimant’s making himself a party, by admitting him to appear and answer, and propounding to him interrogatories and reading his replies; but each interposes a claim and de-fence in opposition to the particular demand, of the other, as respects its right to priority. The court must accordingly, on these issues, determine the rights of the libellants in both suits to a lien on the ship, even if no intervention is made on the part of Captain Fin-lay’s estate, and it may, therefore, be of no immediate moment in the cause, whether the cumulative objections of the administrator are admitted or not. But the question may become one of moment in the practice of admiralty courts, which are largely concerned in disposing of vessels and their proceeds, on demands arising, as in the present cases, beyond their local jurisdiction, prosecuted by foreign creditors, and where the vessels and their proceeds are claimed by owners resident abroad. And, as, from the magnitude of the present demands, the judgment of higher tribunals will probably be invoked in these cases, I think it proper to decide the point, and suggest some of the considerations upon which the decision is founded, in order that an authoritative rule on the subject may be declared by the courts of appeal.

Courts proceeding according to the course of the common law in this country and in [920]*920England, disregard, as a general principle, letters of administration emanating from foreign tribunals, and require the representative of a deceased party, so authorized, to procure letters within the jurisdiction where the court sits. Goodwin v. Jones, 3 Mass. 514. There are exceptions to this rule in the practice of particular states. McCullough v. Young, 1 Bin. 63; Glassell’s Adm’rs v. Wilson’s Adm’rs [Case No. 5,477]; Childress v. Emory, 8 Wheat. [21 U. S.] 642. But it is not important, on this occasion, to investigate the extent of the diversity, or the grounds upon which it rests.

Two principles, it is believed, are common to the jurisprudence of all common law ■courts — that the administrator has the legal title to the personal assets of his intestate, until final distribution of them is made (Bac. Abr. “Executors & Administrators,” HI; 2 ■Bl. Comm. 464; Toll. Ex’rs, 80; 2 Griff. Law Beg. 352); and that the ownership and distribution conform to the law of the domicil of the deceased, without regard to the law of the place of his death, or the situs of his property (Toll. Ex’rs, 133; Com. Dig. “Adm.” B 11; Harvey v. Richards [Case No. 6,184]). This title is not an absolute property in the administrator, but it clothes him with the right of possession and control of the property, until the satisfaction of debts and legacies, as completely as if he were its proprietor. Slack v. Walcott [Id. 12,932]. Under that title, he may undoubtedly take possession of assets in a foreign country, when not prevented by the local law (Com. v. Griffith, 2 Pick. 11, 14); and a voluntary payment of a debt to him, by a foreign debtor, seems to be an acquittance of such foreign debtor (Doolittle v. Lewis, 7 Johns. Ch. 49; Stevens v. Gaylord, 11 Mass. 256). See Dawes v. Head, 3 Pick. 128; Davis v. Estey, 8 Pick. 475. The impediment to the exercise of the full powers of an administrator, in a jurisdiction foreign to that granting him letters of administration, seems, then, to be the technical objection of the law courts, to his reception on the record as a party. That the incapacity is essentially technical and formal, is manifest, because, the party clothed with administration at the place where the intestate died, is admitted, of course, to administration, where the property of the decedent is found. The latter administration is not even claimed to be an original authorization of representation, but is regarded as only ancillary to that. Harvey v. Richards [supra]; Stevens v. Gaylord, 11 Mass. 256; Davis v. Estey, 8 Pick. 475. A cardinal principle, in which the practice of admiralty courts differs from that of courts Of common law, is, that parties prosecute and defend, in the civil law tribunals, upon their rights as existing at the institution of the action, without regard to the state of parties when the right of action or defence accrued, rights of action, or choses in action, as they are termed at law, vesting in their as-signee, when properly transferred, all the privileges and remedies possessed by their assignor. Accordingly, the party in whom a debt is legally vested, sues for it in his own name, the same as if it were a chattel.

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Bluebook (online)
3 F. Cas. 918, 1832 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 14, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/the-boston-nysd-1832.