Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 5.djvu/540

 5?8 FEDERAL REPORTER. �principal question — canthe decreeof the county court grant- ing the letters of administration to Davis be attacked col- laterally? �By the constitution of the state (article 7, §§ 1, 11, and 12) it is provided, in effect, that the oounty court shall be "a court of record, having the general jurisdiction" "pertaining toprobate courts," to be limited by law; and by section 869 of the Civil Code it is declared that such court "has the exclusive juris- diction in the first instance, pertaining to a court of probate, to grant and revoke letters of administration." �In Tustin v. Gaunt, 4 Oregon, 305, the supreme court of the state held that the oounty court, in exercisingtl^e juris- diction pertaining to probate courts, is a court "ot siiperior jurisdiction, as contradistinguished f rom courts of inferior and limited jurisdiction;" and that its "judgments and proceed- ings, " when questioned coUaterally, are entitled to ail the presumptions of law in favor of their legality that pertain to the judgments of superior courts. �In the case of a judgment of a superior court — a court of record — the law presumes that the court had jurisdiction unless the contrary appears ; and in the courts of the same state it has usually been held that, unless the contrary ap- pears from the record of the case, it cannot be shown at ail; in other words, the validity of the judgment and the juris- diction of the court that pronounced it must be tried by the record alone. But the record of a judgment of a court of a state may be contradioted in the courts of a sister state or the United States, as to the facts necessary to give jurisdiction, and if it be shown that such facts did not exist, the record, notwithstanding its recitals to the contrary, is a nullity. Thompson v. Whitman, 18 Wall. 457; Pennoijer v. Neff, 95 U. B. 714. And the same rule bas lately been applied by the New York court of appeals to domestic judgments. Fergu- son\.Crawford,TO'I^.Y.253. �Assuming this to be the rule ! gOveming this oasô, the con- tention of the libellant is : (1) The county court of Multnomah county had not jurisdiotion to grant the letters of admin- ����