Case ID: dc_3/html/0341-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Burke et al. v. Wheaton.
    The Court will appoint a committee here to take care of the property of a person found lunatic in Maryland.
    The mode of ascertaining the lunacy is hy a writ in nature of a writ de lunático inquirendo.
    
    This was a petition to the Court to appoint a committee of the estate of Major Wheaton, who was found lunatic in Baltimore ; there being property in this county. t
    The Court will take notice of the proceedings of a foreign court finding a party lunatic. Ex parte Otto Lewis, 1 Ves. Sen. 298. In Ex parte Gillatn, 2 Ves., Jr. 587, the Solicitor-General said, “ For he had been found lunatic by a competent jurisdiction in the country in which he was. Lord Thurlow thought that a sufficient ground to consider him a lunatic; the country, which is alone the judge, having found him so.”
    “ Lord Chancellor: That distinction I think a very sound one; for the personal capacity, in general, is regulated by the law of the country.”
    The reason why, in New York, a foreign inquisition is not sufficient, is, that the statute only authorizes the Chancellor to appoint committees for those who should be found lunatic by that court.
   The CouRT (ThRüston, J., absent,) appointed Dr. Laurie, committee. The Act of Maryland, 1785, c. 72, § 6, authorizes the Chancellor to superintend the affairs of lunatics, and to appoint a committee, &c., but does not direct the mode of ascertaining who are lunatics. This must be done by a writ in the nature of a writ de lunático inquirendo, which issues by order of the Court upon affidavit.