Page:United States Reports, Volume 209.djvu/331

 09 U.S. Opinion of the Court., concerning the estate, it follows that the local court ld in the nature of things power to determine, as an incident to its general and probate authority, whether the setate had been closed by the agreement, and hence to decide whether that arcement was void, and had also jurisdiction and power to determine whether the property which had been transferred to the mother by the agreement yet remained a part of the estate, and as an incident to so doing to decide the questions of fraud and simulation which were alleged in the bill. Of course, the general scope of the authority which the court then possessed endowed it with the power to liquidate and setth the community which existed between the husband and wife, as that liquidat[on was of necessity involved in the settlement of the estate. Speaking on this latter subject in Lawso et z. v. Ripl, upra, the Supreme Court of Louisiana said (p. 249): "But it is contended that this would be giving to the court of probates the right of trying questions of title. Probate courts have certainly no power to try titles to real estate, and to decide directly on the validity of such titles; but as this court has said in the case of G///v. Phillips et al., 6 Martin N. S. 298, ' those courts possess all powers necessary to carry their juris- diction into effect, and when in the exercise of that jurisdic- tion questions arise collaterally they must, of necessity, de- cide them, for if they could not no other court could.' And, 'any other construction would present a singular species of judicial power--the right to decree a partition, without the authority to inquire into the grounds on which it should be ordered, or the portions that each of the parties should take. The end would thus be conceded without the means.' Ba///o v. W//son, 5 Martin N. S. 217. We are satisfied that whenever a question of title to real property and slaves arises collaterally in a court of probates, and an examination of it becomes nec- essary in order to give the court the means of arriving at a correct conclusion on matters of which it has jurisdiction, it must take cognizance of such title at least for the purpose of

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