The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1902-12-20

HEIRS WIN
The Smith Estate
Will Now Be
Divided.
WILL BE PAID THE
$4,000 POLICY
Meaning OF the United State.
Supreme Court D, cision in
insurance Case.

The case of the Equitable Life AS
surance Society of the United States
vs.. Cecil Brown, as administrator of
the estate of David B. Smith. in which
the United States Supreme Court af-
frmed the Hawaiian Supreme Court.
was one OF the most important ever
tried in the local courts.
The suit was for a s25, 900 insurance
policy taken out in the Equitable and
which the Company refused to pay to
the administrator, Cecil Brown. An
other action had been brought on the
same policy DIN the United States Cir
cult Court of New York by other heirs
of Smith, who claimed that he had
owed them money borrowed in estab-
fishing shoe store in Honolulu 4
jury in the circuit coure here found in
favor of the administrator. AMI the
insurance company appealed 20 tie SUI
preme Court, which refused to inter-
fere with the lower courts verdict.
In the United States Supreme Court,
where the case was appealed, the err
rors assigned were in brief as follows:
That the judgment of the Supreme
Court of the Territory of Hawaii, be-
ing the highest court of law and equity
of the said Territory in which de-
cision could be had therein, should be
reversed, first, because of the penden-
cy of another action in the circuit
court of the United States for the
Southern district of New York: second,
because of the exclusion as evidence,
of the exemplif1ed copy of the proceed
ings upon the appointment cf the adj
ministrator aforesaid in the Surro-
gates court of the County of New
York, and because of the exclusion, as
evidence, of the exemplified copysof the
proceedings lad in said United States
Circuit Court, all of said exemplified
copies having keen offered in evidence
for the purpose of maintaining that
judgment ought not to be entered
against said insurance company, be-
cause of said proceedings III New York
and because Section l, Article of the
Constitution of the United States, pro-
viding that full faith and credit shall
be given in each state 20 the public
acts and judicial proceedings of every
other state, which clause of said Con
stitution was by Section 905 OF the
Revised Statutes made effective in tho
territories, required the abatement of
the proceedings in the courts of iIa-
wall, and all of said exemplified copies
being offered under claim of exemption
from liability to defendant in error
herein by virtue of said clause in said
Constitution and said statute and also
by virtue of the act of Congress OF
April 30. 1900, entitled An Act to Pro-
vide a Government for the Territory
Of Hawaii
The defendant in error in the brief
filed in the United States Supreme
Court claimed that the courts of the
Territory had Jurisdiction which could
not be ousted by the proceedings of
the New York court, which had not as
yet even resulted in judgment.
In the argument upon which the
Supreme Courts decision refusing to
take jurisdiction is undoubtedly based,
the following points were set up:
l. The faith and credit clause of
the Constitution, Section 1, Article 4,
and Section 905. Revised Statutes, do
not require that court should sur
render it's own jurisdiction first ac-
luired.
2. There is no Federal question in
yolved in the case. The case required
no construction of the Constitution or
statutes.
8. The Federal question which
plaintiff in error attempts to raise is
frivolous, and cannot give the United
States Supreme Court jurisdiction in
this case.