Opinion of the Court. from the record that a Federal question was involved. This court will not entertain jurisdiction if it appears that, besides the Federal question decided by the state court, there is another and distinct ground on which the judgment or decree can be sustained, and which is sufficient to support it. The Supreme Court of Washington finds that defendants in error stand in the position of innocent purchasers; that the equities are with them; that "appellant wilfully abandoned the property in question, and he had reason to expect that proceedings of the kind would be instituted after a lapse of seven years." These findings, if correct, are sufficient to sustain the judgment and present no Federal question. Their determination by the state court is therefore conclusive, and is sufficient to sustain the judgment. If a statute regulating probate proceedings is itself constitutional, the decision of the state court of last resort that the provisions of such statute have been complied with in a given cause, is conclusive. In the case at bar, the constitutionality of the statutes, under which the probate proceedings were had, is not and has not been questioned. II. Where a probate court, upon a petition setting forth jurisdictional facts, finds those facts (including the fact of death) to exist, the proceedings will protect all persons depending thereon in good faith, even though the supposed decedent subsequently prove to be alive. Roderigas v. East River Savings Institution, 63 N. Y. 460; Plume v. Howard Savings Institution, 17 Vroom, 46 N. J. L. 211, 229. MR. JUSTICE GRAY, after stating the case, delivered the opinion of the court. The plaintiff formerly owned the land in question, and still owns it, unless he has been deprived of it by a sale and conveyance, under order of the probate court of the county of Thurston and Territory of Washington, by an administrator of his estate, appointed by that court on April 20, upon a petition filed April 2, 1888. Opinion of the Court. The form of the order appointing the administrator is peculiar. By that order, after reciting that the plaintiff disappeared more than seven years before, and had not since been seen or heard of by his relatives and acquaintances, and that the circumstances at and immediately after the time when he was last seen, about eight years ago, were such as to give them the belief that he was murdered about that time, the probate court finds that he "is dead to all legal intents and purposes, having died on or about March 25, 1888," that is to say, not at the time of his supposed murder seven or eight years before, but within a month before the filing of the petition for administration. The order also, after directing that Milroy be appointed administrator, purports to direct that "letters of guardianship" issue to him upon his giving bond; but this was evidently a clerical error in the order, or in the record, for it appears that he received letters of administration and qualified under them. The fundamental question in the case is whether letters of administration upon the estate of a person who is in fact alive have any validity or effect as against him. By the law of England and America, before the Declaration of Independence, and for almost a century afterwards, the absolute nullity of such letters was treated as beyond dispute. In Allen v. Dundas, 3 T. R. 125, in 1789, in which the Court of King's Bench held that payment of a debt due to a deceased person, to an executor who had obtained probate of a forged will, discharged the debtor, notwithstanding the probate was afterwards declared null and void and administration granted to the next of kin, the decision went upon the ground that the probate, being a judicial act of the ecclesiastical court within its jurisdiction, could not, so long as it remained unrepealed, be impeached in the temporal courts. It was argued for the plaintiff that the case stood as if the creditor had not been dead, and had himself brought the action, in which case it was assumed, on all hands, that payment to an executor would be no defence. But the court clearly stated the essential distinction between the two cases. Mr. Justice Ashurst said: "The case of a probate of a supposed will during the Opinion of the Court. life of the party may be distinguished from the present; because during his life the ecclesiastical court has no jurisdiction, nor can they inquire who is his representative; but when the party is dead, it is within their jurisdiction." And Mr. Justice Buller said: "Then this case was compared to a probate of a supposed will of a living person; but in such a case the ecclesiastical court have no jurisdiction, and the probate can have no effect: their jurisdiction is only to grant probates of the wills of dead persons. The distinction in this respect is this; if they have jurisdiction, their sentence, as long as it stands unrepealed, shall avail in all other places; but where they have no jurisdiction, their whole proceedings are a nullity." 3 T. R. 129, 130. And such is the law of England to this day. Williams on Executors, (9th ed.) 478, 1795; Taylor on Ev. (8th ed.) §§ 1677, 1714. In Griffith v. Frazier, 8 Cranch, 9, 23, in 1814, this court, speaking by Chief Justice Marshall, said: "To give the ordinary jurisdiction, a case in which, by law, letters of administration may issue, must be brought before him. In the common case of intestacy, it is clear that letters of administration must be granted to some person by the ordinary; and though they should be granted to one not entitled by law, still the act is binding until annulled by the competent authority; because he had power to grant letters of administration in the case. But suppose administration to be granted on an estate of a person not really dead. The act, all will admit, is totally void. Yet the ordinary must always inquire and decide whether the person, whose estate is to be committed to the care of others, be dead or in life. It is a branch of every cause in which letters of administration issue. Yet the decision of the ordinary that the person on whose estate he acts is dead, if the fact be otherwise, does not invest the person he may appoint with the character or powers of an administrator. The case, in truth, was not one within his jurisdiction. It was not one in which he had a right to deliberate. It was not committed to him by the law. And although one of the points occurs in all cases proper for his tribunal, yet that point cannot bring the subject within his jurisdiction." See also Mutual Benefit Opinion of the Court. Ins. Co. v. Tisdale, 91 U. S. 238, 243; Hegler v. Faulkner, 153 U. S. 109, 118. The same doctrine has been affirmed by the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania in a series of cases beginning seventy years ago. McPherson v. Cunliff, (1824) 11 S. & R. 422, 430; Peebles' Appeal, (1826) 15 S. & R. 39, 42; Devlin v. Commonwealth, (1882) 101 Penn. St. 273. In the last of those cases, it was held that a grant of letters of administration upon the estate of a person who, having been absent and unheard from for fifteen years, was presumed to be dead, but who, as it afterwards appeared, was in fact alive, was absolutely void, and might be impeached collaterally. The Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, in 1861, upon full consideration, held that an appointment of an administrator of a man who was in fact alive, but had been absent and not heard from for more than seven years, was void, and that payment to such an administrator was no bar to an action brought by the man on his return; and, in answer to the suggestion of counsel, that "seven years' absence, upon leaving one's usual home or place of business, without being heard of, authorizes the judge of probate to treat the case as though the party were dead," the court said: "The error consists in this, that those facts are only presumptive evidence of death, and may always be controlled by other evidence showing that the fact was otherwise. The only jurisdiction is over the estate of the dead man. When the presumption arising from the absence of seven years is overthrown by the actual personal presence of the supposed dead man, it leaves no ground for sustaining the jurisdiction." Jochumsen v. Suffolk Savings Bank, 3 Allen, 87, 96. See also Waters v. Stickney, 12 Allen, 1, 13; Day v. Floyd, 130 Mass. 488, 489. The Civil Code of Louisiana, in title 3, "Of Absentees," contains provisions for the appointment of a curator to take care of the property of any person who is absent from or resides out of the State, without having left an attorney therein; and for the putting of his presumptive heirs into provisional possession after he has been absent and not heard from for five, or, if he has left an attorney, seven years, or sooner if Opinion of the Court. there be strong presumption of his death; and for judicial sale, if necessary, of his movable or personal property, and safe investment of the proceeds; and, upon proof that he has not been heard from for ten years, and has left no known heirs, for sale of his whole property, and payment of the proceeds into the treasury of the State, as in the case of vacant successions; but neither the curator, nor those in provisional possession, can alienate or mortgage his immovables or real estate; and if he returns, at any time, he recovers his whole property, or the proceeds thereof, and a certain proportion of the annual revenues, depending upon the length of his absence. The main object of those provisions, as their careful regulations show, is to take possession of and preserve the property for the absent owner, not to deprive him of it upon an assumption that he is dead. Accordingly, the Supreme Court of Louisiana held that the appointment, by a court having jurisdiction of successions, of an administrator of the estate of a man represented to be dead, but who was in fact alive at the time of the appointment, was void; and that persons claiming land of his, under a sale by such administrator under order of the court, followed by long possession, could not hold the land against his heirs; and, speaking by Chief Justice Manning, said: "The title of Hotchkiss as administrator is null, because he had no authority to make it, and the prescription pleaded does not validate it. It was not a sale, the informalities of which are cured by a certain lapse of time, and which becomes perfect through prescription; but it was void, because the court was without authority to order it." "It is urged, on the part of the defendants, that the decree of the court ordering the sale of the succession property should protect them, and, as the court which thus ordered the sale had jurisdiction of successions, it was not for them to look beyond it. But that is assuming as true that which we know was not true. The owner was not dead. There was no succession." And the court added that Chief Justice Marshall, in Griffith v. Frazier, above cited, disposed of that position. Burns v. Van Loan, (1877) 29 La. Ann. 560, 563. |