Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 10.djvu/89

 PULLIAM V. PULLIAM. 77 �statutes of the state, and not the stat.utes of England, and draws ita analogies from the same, I have no doubt it is a correct statement of the la-w. But this only refers to these statutes as affecting remedies, and not to such as become rules of property. Our Code, § 2763, for example, enacts that seven years' adverse possession vests a good and indefeasible title to land; and such a construction of the common statute as that of Kegler v. Miles, M. & Y. 425, makes these statutes, in some cases, rules of property as well as statutes of limitation, and as such courts of equity enf orce them in all cases, legal and equitable ; and, 80 far as they are rules of property, they are binding on the federal courts of equity, aiid should be. It -would be intolerable if they were not. The resuit in cases like this, if that were not the rule, would be that one creditor would have a trust on assets for his debt, while another would have none; or the same creditor in one court would have a right to satisfaction out of assets, and in another he would not. �There are, as said in argument, some instances in other depart- ments of the law where similar results grow out of conflict of decis- ion between the state and federal courts ; but it is agreed everywhere that such consequences should be avoided, if possible, and I do not care to add the administration of estates to the catalogue of such misfortunes. �The administration of estates belongs peculiarly to ecclesiastical or probate courts ; and courts of equity, while assuming jurisdiction to the extent they do, cannot ignore the positive rules of law regulating such administration, and thereby produce confusion on any theory that they act independently. The original statute of limitation did not, in terms, apply to equitable remedies, and for that reason alone it was not binding on courts of equity administering equitable relief. This was not because equity courts were above statutory authority, for when the court found itself for any reason administer- ing incidentally or concurrently legal remedies, it obeyed the statute, and only in its own exclusive sphere did it ever assume to be exempt from it. These special statutes of limitation perform for other departments of the law and courts therein a higher function than that of merely limiting causes of action as to time. They are not supplementary substitutes for the common statutes of limitation, but positive rules of law, acting in an independent field of jurisprudence for a different object. Therefore, I hold that, whether binding as statutes of limitation or not, as rules of property they should gov- ern us. ��� �