Irwin v. Scriber

Baldwin, J. delivered the opinion of the Court Cope, J. concurring.

The only question presented in this case is, whether it can be collaterally shown against the grant of administration upon an estate made by the Probate Court of one county, that the Court had no jurisdiction, by showing that deceased had not her last place of residence in that county.

We. think it cannot. By the Act of March 27th, 1858, (Stat. 1858, 95) it is provided that the proceedings of Courts of Probate within the jurisdiction conferred on them by the laws shall be construed in the same manner and with like intendments as proceedings of Courts of general jurisdiction, and the records, orders, judgments and decrees of the said Probate Courts shall have accorded [504]to them like force and effect and legal presumptions as the records, orders, judgments and decrees of the District Courts.

It is scarcely disputable that a judgment of the District Court could not be collaterally impeached by showing that the party really was not in the county or served with process; or that a judgment of the United States District Court could be assailed collaterally by proof that the plaintiff was not really a resident of a different State from that of. the suit, or not an alien, etc. The same presumptions in favor of the jurisdiction now attach in favor of the Probate Court, as obtain in either of the Courts mentioned. Independently of the statute, it is, to say the least, extremely questionable whether this sort of collateral attack is admissible, although some countenance is given to it by the case of Beckett v. Selover (7 Cal. 215). The danger of such a doctrine is forcibly illustrated by Mr. Justice Roosevelt, in Monell v. Dennison (17 How. P. 426). He says: “ Where the jurisdiction of a subordinate tribunal, having cognizance of the general -subject, has attached by the presentation of a verified prima facie case, and by the appearance-of the parties, its decision, even on a quasi jurisdictional fact, such.as that of inhabitancy, must be conclusive, unless reversed on appeal. To allow it to be called in question collaterally, and on every occasion and during-all time, would be destructive of all confidence. No business in particular depending on letters testamentary or of administration could be safely transacted. Payments made to an executor or administrator, even after judgment, would be no protection. Even if the debtor litigated the precise point, and compelled the executor to establish it by proof, the adjudication would avail him nothing should a subsequent administrator, as in this case, spring up, and after the lapse of a fifth of a century, demand payment a second time, when a scintilla of evidence on one side remained and all on the other had perished. A large number of titles, too, depend for their validity on decrees of foreclosure, and these decrees are often made in suits instituted by executors, or administrators, or their assigns. Must these, too, be subject to be overhauled at any period, however remote, on the nice question of residence ?—a question often difficult to decide where the facts are clear, and much more so, of course, where the facts are obscured