Manley v. Park/Opinion of the Court

A motion has been made to dismiss the writ of error upon the ground that no Federal question is presented by the record, it being claimed that the decision and judgment of the supreme court of Kansas sought to be reviewed was based solely upon a consideration of local statutes and the determination of a question of general law, viz., the effect as res judicata of a judgment of a court of Kansas. But as the claim of the benefit of the Constitution of the United States was specially made in the motions, and was passed upon adversely to the moving party, it follows that a Federal question exists in this record, and the motion to dismiss in therefore overruled. Missouri, K. & T. R. Co. v. Elliott, 184 U.S. 534, 46 L. ed. 676, 22 Sup. Ct. Rep. 446.

The specifications of error now relied upon are thus stated in the brief of counsel for plaintiff in error:

'First. Under the Constitution and laws of the state of Kansas, an executor, resident in the state of Kansas, could be sued in a district court of the state, but the property in his charge could not be attached, nor sold on execution.

'Second. Under the Constitution and statutes of the state of Kansas, no authority exists for attaching the property in charge of a nonresident executor.

'Third. Section 203 of the executors' and administrators' act (Kan. Gen. Stat. 1889, ¶2989), as construed and upheld in this case, is in violation of § 2, art. 4, of the Constitution of the United States, in that it does not accord to the plaintiff in error and his predecessor, citizens of the state of New Jersey, all the privileges and immunities of an executor resident in the state of Kansas. U.S.C.onst. art. 4, § 2.

'Fourth. Section 203 of the executors' and administrators' act (Kan. Gen. Stat. 1889, ¶2989), as construed and upheld in this case, is in violation of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, in that it abridges the privileges of the plaintiff in error and his predecessor, citizens of the United States, and their immunity from suit by attachment, and deprives them of their property without due process of law, and denies them the equal protection of the laws.

'Fifth. The right of the plaintiff in error, and his predecessors, citizens of the state of New Jersey, to act as executors of the estate of George Manley, deceased, is a privilege, and the exemption of an executor, not a resident in the state of Kansas, from suits by attachment, is an immunity which is guaranteed by § 2, art. 4, Constitution of the United States, and the same were denied by the decision of the supreme court of Kansas in this case.'

The first and second propositions, it is manifest, simply invite a consideration of the Constitution and laws of the state of Kansas; and, consequently, the construction adopted by the supreme court of Kansas of the pertinent provisions of such Constitution and laws, is binding upon this court as a decision upon a matter of purely local law, not presenting a Federal question. We must accept, then, as undeniable the ruling of the highest court of Kansas, that under the Constitution and statutes of Kansas real estate situated in that state, the title to which was vested in a nonresident executor, to whom letters testamentary had been issued by a court of another jurisdiction, might be attached and sold, in an action of debt against the nonresident executor.

The remaining propositions assail the validity, under the Constitution of the United States, of the statute of Kansas (Kan. Gen. Stat. 1889, ¶2989; Kan. Gen. Stat. 1897, chap. 107, § 147), as thus construed by the supreme court of Kansas. The section in question upon which the judgment complained of was based is as follows:

'An executor or administrator duly appointed in any other state or county may sue or be sued in any court in this state, in his capacity of executor or administrator, in like manner and under like restrictions as a nonresident may sue or be sued.'

This section was held to authorize an attachment of property in an action against a nonresident executor, precisely as in ordinary actions against nonresidents.

Now, the claimed nullity of the judgment assailed was based upon the alleged invalidity of the Kansas statute above quoted, as respected the Constitution of the United States, in this, that as an executor resident in Kansas possessed the privilege or immunity of not being subject to suit by attachment of property, a like privilege or immunity within the state of Kansas was vested by the Constitution of the United States in executors who were not residents of Kansas, and the refusal of the state of Kansas to accord such privilege or immunity to a nonresident executor, and the subjecting him to the operation of attachment laws, deprived the foreign executor of his property without due process of law, and denied him the equal protection of the laws. But it is obvious, we think, under the circumstances disclosed in this record, that the protection of the Constitution of the United States could not be successfully invoked to annul the judgment here complained of on the theory that such judgment was absolutely void and of no effect under the Constitution of the United States. This results from the consideration that no claim to the protection of the Constitution of the United States was set up in any form in the proceedings had in the state court which resulted in the judgment complained of, and for such reason, if that judgment had been brought to this court for review, it would have been its duty-having in mind the provisions of § 709 of the Revised Statutes [U.S.C.omp. Stat. 1901, p. 575]-to affirm the judgment and recognize its binding force, because no Federal question was raised. A domestic judgment of a state court whose validity it would have been the duty of this court to uphold, on direct proceedings to obtain a reversal of such judgment, manifestly should be treated by courts of the United States, so far as relates to Federal questions which existed at the time the action was commenced in which the judgment was rendered, as valid between the parties to such judgment. We could not hold to the contrary without saying that a Federal defense which could not be availed of unless raised before judgment was yet efficacious, although not raised, to avoid the judgment when rendered. This would necessarily declare a plain contradiction in terms. As the authority conferred by Kansas upon her courts was to set aside void judgments, provisions of the Constitution of the United States which would have been available if pleaded or otherwise presented in the state courts as a defense in the proceedings in the original action to defeat the recovery of a valid judgment cannot, when the opportunity has not been availed of and the judgment has become a finality, be resorted to as establishing that in fact the judgment possessed no binding force or efficacy whatever.

Judgment affirmed.