A voluntary payment of a debt to a foreign administrator held
good as against the claim of an administrator duly appointed at the
domicile of the debtor, in which last place the debt was paid,
there having been no creditors of the intestate in this last place,
nor any persons there entitled as distributees.
Quarles, being domiciled in the State of Alabama, died there,
and letters of administration were there taken out by
Page 76 U. S. 741
one Goodloe, of that state. Wilkins, a resident of Memphis,
Tennessee, owed the estate $3,455, and being called upon at Memphis
by Goodloe, the administrator, paid the debt and took a receipt.
Goodloe duly accounted before the probate court in Alabama for the
sum thus received. Afterwards, Ellett, a citizen of the State of
Virginia, and who professed to be next of kin to the deceased, took
out letters of administration in Tennessee and brought this suit
against Wilkins to recover the same debt. There were no creditors
or persons entitled as distributees of the intestate in the State
of Tennessee. The court below, holding that the voluntary payment
by Wilkins to the Alabama administrator was in his own wrong, gave
judgment for the plaintiff. Wilkins, the debtor, now brought the
case to this Court, the question of course being whether voluntary
payment to the foreign administrator had discharged the home
one.
MR. JUSTICE NELSON delivered the opinion of the Court.
It has long been settled, and is a principle of universal
jurisprudence, in all civilized nations, that the personal
Page 76 U. S. 742
estate of the deceased is to be regarded, for the purposes of
succession and distribution, wherever situated, as having no other
locality than that of his domicile, and if he dies intestate, the
succession is governed by the law of the place where he was
domiciled at the time of his decease, and not by the conflicting
laws of the various places where the property happened at the time
to be situated. [
Footnote 1]
The original administrator therefore, with letters taken out at the
place of the domicile, is invested with the title to all the
personal property of the deceased for the purpose of collecting the
effects of the estate, paying the debts, and making distribution of
the residue according to the law of the place, or directions of the
will, as the case may be.
It is true, if any portion of the estate is situated in another
country, he cannot recover possession by suit without taking out
letters of administration from the proper tribunal in that country,
as the original letters can confer upon him no extraterritorial
authority. The difficulty does not lie in any defect of title to
the possession, but in a limitation or qualification of the general
principles in respect to personal property by the comity of
nations, founded upon the policy of the foreign country to protect
the interests of its home creditors. These letters are regarded as
merely ancillary to the original letters as to the collection and
distribution of the effects, and generally are simply made
subservient to the claims of the domestic creditors, the residuum
being transmitted to the probate court of the country of the
domicile for the final settlement of the estate. It is upon this
qualification of the law of comity and consequent inability of the
original administrator to sue in the foreign country upon which the
objection is founded to the validity of the voluntary payment by
the foreign debtor to him.
There is doubtless some plausibility in it, growing out of the
interest of the home creditors. But it has not been regarded of
sufficient weight to carry with it the judicial mind of the
country. With the exception of the case in the State
Page 76 U. S. 743
of Tennessee, none have been referred to, nor have our own
researches found any, maintaining the invalidity of the payment.
The question has been directly and indirectly before several of the
courts of the states, and the opinions have all been in one
direction -- in favor of the validity. [
Footnote 2]
Mr. Justice Story, in his Conflict of Laws, [
Footnote 3] has expressed a doubt as it respects
the soundness of the doctrine upon principles of international law,
and which
is mainly relied on in the present case by the
defendant in error. He had affirmed it in
Trecothick v.
Austin, and he admits in a note [
Footnote 4] that if a debtor be found in a foreign country
where the creditor died and where he had his domicile, and was sued
by the administrator, he could not protect himself by a plea that
he was liable to pay only to an administrator appointed at the
place of his (the creditor's) domicile. All debts follow the person
not of the debtor in respect of the right or property, but of the
creditor to whom due. [
Footnote
5]
Judgment reversed.
[
Footnote 1]
2 Kent's Commentaries 429; Story's Conflict of Laws §
379.
[
Footnote 2]
Williams v. Storrs, 6 Johnson's Chancery 353;
Doolittle v. Lewis, 7
id. 51;
Vroom v. Van
Horne, 10 Paige 549, 557;
Schultz v. Pulver, 11
Wendell 361;
Trecothick v. Austin, 4 Mason 33;
Stevens
v. Gaylord, 11 Mass. 256;
Nisbet v. Stewart, 2
Devereux & Battle 24;
Parsons v. Lyman, 20 N.Y.
108.
[
Footnote 3]
§ 515
a.
[
Footnote 4]
Ib. 432.
[
Footnote 5]
Thorne v. Watkins, 2 Vesey Sr. 35.
