Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 9.djvu/249

 234 FKDEEAL REPORTEE. �is afBrmed in Florentine v. Barton, 2 Wall. 216, in which the court says : �" The petition of the administrator, setting forth that the personal property of the deeeased is insufflcient to pay such debts, and praying the court for an order of sale, brought the case fully wifchin the jurisdiction of the court. It became a case of judieial cognizance, and the proeeedinga are judicial. The court has power over the subject-matter and the parties." �How did the court get jurisdiction? Not merely by the actual existence of the jurisdictional facts, but by their averment in the petition, and — �" The court having (by such representation) the right to decide every ques- tion which coeurs in a cause, whether the decision is correct or otherwise, its judgment, until reversed, is binding on every other court. Id. * * * This proposition will be f ound fully discussed at length, and fully decided by us, in QHgnon's Lessees v. Astor. Any further argument in vindicatiou of them would be superfluous." Id. �Affirmed again in Comstock v. Crawford, S Wall. 403, 406. See, also, Caujolk V. Ferrie, 13 Wall. 465 ; McNitt v. Turner, 16 Wall. 363, 366. In the very late case of Mohr v. Manierre, 101 U. S. 424-5, the supreme court, by Mr. Justice Field, citing Grignon's Lessees, Bays: �« This court, however, held that no other requisites to the jurisdiction of the county court were prescribed by the statute than the death of the intes- tate, the insufflciency of his personal estate to pay liis debts, and a representa- tion of the facts to the county court where he dwelt or his real estate was situated; that the decision of the county court upon the facts was the exer- cise of jurisdiction which the representation conf erred ; and that the decision could not be collaterally attacked by reason of them. The court observed in substance * * * that it was sufflcient to call its powers into exercise; that the petition stated the fact upon the existence of which the law author- ized this sale; that the granting of the licerise was an adjudication that such facts existed," etc. �And again : �"The statute declared that upon the existence of certain facts the sale of the lunatic's estate niight be niade, and when tliese appeared in the petition of the guardian, the court had jurisdiction to act, so far as his rights were cohoerned, as fully as if the statute has so declared in terms, whatever may be the efEect of its proceedings upon the interests of parties not properly brought before the court." Id. 426. �Thus, in that case, the principle so often repeated is again recog- nized and asserted, that when the jurisdictional facts are alleged in the petition, the court has jurisdiction to act upon them; that the determination of the truth or falsity of those facts is judicial action, ��� �