Aspden v. Nixon , 11 L. Ed. 1059 ( 1846 )

45 U.S. 467 (1846) 4 How. 467

ASPDEN AND OTHERS COMPLAINANTS,
v.
NIXON AND OTHERS, DEFENDANTS.

Supreme Court of United States.

The cause was argued by Mr. J. Hoffman and Mr. David Hoffman, with whom was Mr. Charles J. Ingersoll, for John Aspden of Lancashire, in support of the plea in bar, and by Mr. Reed and Mr. Williams, for Mrs. Poole and Mrs. Jones, and for John A. Brown, administrator of John Aspden of London, against the validity of the plea.

Mr. Justice CATRON (after having stated the facts of the case as they are recited in the commencement of this report) proceeded to deliver the opinion of the court.

We understand the true question submitted to this court to be, whether the decree dismissing the bill, made by the High Court of Chancery in England, bars and precludes John A. Brown, the Pennsylvania administrator of John Aspden of London, from prosecuting his claim as administrator for the Pennsylvania assets of the estate of Matthias Aspden, found in the hands of Joseph Trotter, the present administrator, with the will annexed; Nixon having died, the contest in the British court was between an executor there, and administrators also there; the complainants sued and the defendant resisted the claim alike in a representative capacity, and were restricted by the authority under which they respectively acted to the limits of the country to which their letters extended. Under his English letters testamentary, Nixon could do no act as executor beyond England; so neither could he voluntarily transfer the Pennsylvania assets to the foreign jurisdiction, there to be distributed, as this would have been in violation of his letters in this country; by these he held the assets here as trustee, and in subordination to the laws of Pennsylvania and the orders of the Orphan's Court executing those laws, as well as in subordination to the suit pending in the Circuit Court.

So, on the other hand, on the death of John Aspden of London, the bill in chancery ceased to be his bill, and became the suit of the parties for whose benefit it was revived; when this was done, they represented John Aspden of London, as administrator of his estate, and the same rules applied to them as to Matthias's executor; they only represented the intestate by virtue of, and to the extent of, their English letters, and could not be known as representatives in Pennsylvania. Again, the representative character of Nixon in England was altogether distinct from his character as executor in Pennsylvania. And so, also the English administrators of John Aspden's estate are equally distinct from Brown, who is the administrator of his estate in Pennsylvania. It follows, the English suit was between different parties from those prosecuting and defending the American suit; and therefore neither the decree, nor the proceedings on which it is founded, are competent evidence between the parties to the present suit, for this reason; and yet more conclusively for another, which is, that the property in controversy here is distinct from that sued for in England.

As applicable to such a state of facts, the rules of evidence governing courts of justice are, that a judgment or decree set up as a bar by plea, or relied on as evidence by way of estoppel, to be conclusive, must have been made, 1. by a court of competent jurisdiction upon the same subject-matter; 2. between the same parties; 3. for the same purpose; and, on either ground, the evidence submitted to our judgment is incompetent to prove any thing in regard to the Pennsylvania assets.

But these conclusions are resisted by those setting up the bar on this ground, — that the administration of the domicile is the principal administration on the estate of Matthias Aspden, and this being in England, and the assumed devisee's residence also being there, the Pennsylvania administration was auxiliary to the foreign one; that in the British suit the American assets might have been recovered from the executor Nixon, the bill having gone for the Pennsylvania assets, as well as the English.

However true it may be, in cases peculiarly circumstanced, that one jurisdiction administering assets may, as matter of comity, transmit them to a foreign jurisdiction, there to be distributed; still, the doctrine can have no application here, as no assets had been transmitted to England from Pennsylvania, and a suit was pending, and in no part decided, in this country for the American assets, before and at the time the decree in England was made; and therefore an assumption to distribute the assets in this country by the High Court of Chancery in England must necessarily have been treated by the Circuit Court as merely void for want of jurisdiction of the subject-matter in the foreign court. Even up to this date, the American court could exercise no comity, as is manifest from the state of the proceedings before us; nor will there be any occasion for its exercise hereafter, as all the parties claiming the estate are before the Circuit Court, anxiously litigating their claims, and seeking distribution at its hands.

It is proper, however, to remark, in this connection, that the courts of the United States held in Pennsylvania are administering the laws of that State, and bound by the same rules governing the local tribunals; and that by these laws a devisee, before he can take a legacy, must give security that if any debt or demand should afterwards be recovered against the estate of the testator, the devisee shall refund. Purdon's Dig., Ex. & Ad., §§ 41, 47. So, also, there are many other provisions in the laws of Pennsylvania governing the distribution of estates that would embarrass the Orphan's Courts in exercising the comity referred to. The like laws exist in other States of the Union; and, under the influence of such laws, the courts of the States have been so much restrained, as to render an exercise of comity among each other little more than a barren theory; nor could more be required in a case like the present, where part of the assets were administered abroad, under independent letters granted there, and by a tribunal that was under no obligations to extend comity to the probate courts of this country, whatever might be done in the exercise of a sound discretion.

The next ground, and that relied on with most confidence in support of the bar, is, that John Aspden of London, and those representing him after his death, were British subjects, residing in Great Britain, and that the contest and only matter litigated in the High Court of Chancery was, whether John Aspden of London was or was not the heir and consequent devisee of Matthias Aspden; and that this fact having been found by the decree against the complainants established and concluded all proof to the contrary of such adjudication, directly on the single fact of title; and that the representatives of John of London could not be heard in another jurisdiction to disavow the conclusiveness of the finding by a court of their own government, to which they had resorted.

That the English bill involved directly the question of heirship, and that nothing else was contested, is undoubtedly true; but it is equally true, that no evidence was introduced by the complainants there to establish their title, nor was there had any adjudication on the merits of their claim; so that no equitable considerations are violated by our present judgment, in any aspect that the evidence may be viewed.

What effect the decree has in England is a question for the courts of that country to settle; nor will we now determine whether, in our judgment, by the comity of nations, the proceedings should have a similar effect here; or what effect they should have. The question for us to dispose of is, whether the administrator and distributees of John Aspden of London shall be heard in the Circuit Court, or whether their evidence of title is barred? We have already stated that the Pennsylvania assets stand unaffected, and will only add, that the assumption that a complainant or plaintiff is estopped; by a judgment against him, from introducing evidence in a second suit, and in another country, for other property, on the ground that the fact of title had been adjudged and concluded by a former judgment or decree (thus separating the title from the property), is an abstract proposition, inconsistent with the due administration of justice, and not recognized in our system of jurisprudence, or that of Great Britain, and is aside from any question affecting the comity of nations.

Giving the British decree all the force and effect that could be accorded to it if it had been made in a State of this Union, it yet establishes no fact, as respects any title to the Pennsylvania assets; nor would the rules of evidence be sufficient in separate suits, pending in the same court, for different parcels of property, even between the same parties. And therefore we certify to the Circuit Court, that the evidence introduced "touching the plea in bar" is no estoppel to the representatives of John Aspden of London, in so far as they seek to recover the assets of Matthias Aspden's estate in the course of administration by the Orphan's Court of Philadelphia county. Further than this, we do not pretend to determine on the effect of the evidence, as we are not aware that any controversy now exists in the Circuit Court in regard to any other assets.

Order.

This cause came on to be heard on the transcript of the record from the Circuit Court of the United States for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, and on the point and question on which the judges of the said Circuit Court were opposed in opinion, and which was certified to this court for its opinion, agreeably to the act of Congress in such case made and provided, and was argued by counsel. On consideration whereof, it is the opinion of this court, that the evidence introduced "touching the plea in bar" is no estoppel to the representatives of John Aspden of London, in so far as they seek to recover the assets of Matthias Aspden's estate in the course of administration by the Orphan's Court of Philadelphia county; whereupon it is now here ordered and decreed by this court, that it be certified to the said Circuit Court accordingly.

Dissenting, Mr. Chief Justice TANEY and Mr. Justice McLEAN.