Source: https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/198/458/
Timestamp: 2019-04-19 10:54:01+00:00

Document:
That the Fourteenth Amendment does not deprive the states of their police power over subjects within their jurisdiction is elementary, and, in determining the validity of a statute, the question before the court is not the wisdom of the statute, but whether it is so beyond the scope of the municipal government as to amount to a want of due process of law.
The right to regulate concerning the estate or property of absentees is an attribute which in its very essence belongs to all governments, to the end that they may be able to perform the purposes for which government exists, and, in the absence of restrictions in its own constitution, none of which exists in the State of Pennsylvania, is within the scope of of a state government; nor does the exercise of this power violate the Fourteenth Amendment by depriving the absentee of his property without due process of law in case he is alive when the proceedings are initiated.
Where the provisions of a state statute for administration on the assets of an absentee are reasonable as to the period of absence necessary to create the presumption of death, and create proper safeguards for the protection of his interests in case the absentee should return, it does not violate the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment because it deprives the absentee of his property without notice.
The Pennsylvania statute of 1885, Public Laws, p. 155, providing for the administration of the property of persons absent and unheard of for seven or more years is a valid enactment, and is not repugnant to the Fourteenth Amendment because it deprives the absentee of his property without due process of law.
the time of such revocation, and shall transfer all assets remaining in his hands to the person as whose administrator he had acted, or to his duly authorized agent or attorney: Provided, the said letters were unrevoked, and the administrator the title of any person to any money or property received as widow, next of kin, or heir of such supposed decedent, but the same may be recovered from such person in all cases in which such recovery would be had if this act had not been passed."
"shall, in fact be at the time alive, they will, respectively, refund the amounts received by each, on demand, with interest thereon; but if the person or persons entitled to receive the same is or are unable to give the security aforesaid, then the money shall be put at interest on security approved by said court, which interest is to be paid annually to the person entitled to it, and the money to remain at interest until the security aforesaid is given, or the orphans' court, on application, shall order it to be paid to the person or persons entitled to it."
After affording remedies in favor of the absentee in case the issue of letters should be subsequently revoked, the statute provides that the costs attending the issue of letters or their revocation shall be paid out of the estate of the supposed decedent, and that the costs arising upon the application for letters which shall not be granted shall be paid by the applicant. Public Laws 1885, p. 155.
to the school district, because, as she was alive when the proceedings for administration were taken in the state court, those proceedings and the law which authorized them were repugnant to the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States. She, moreover, contended, even although there was power in the state to provide by law for the administration of the property of an absentee, the particular law in question was repugnant to the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution, as it did not provide for adequate notice, and because the law failed to furnish the necessary safeguards to give it validity. The case went to a jury upon legal points being reserved.
The trial court decided that Mrs. Smith was entitled to recover, because the Pennsylvania statute did not provide essential notice, and was therefore repugnant to the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The superior court, to which the case was taken, affirmed the action of trial court on the ground that, as Mrs. Smith was alive when the proceedings to administer her estate as an absentee were had, that administration was void and the statute authorizing it was repugnant to the Fourteenth Amendment. 21 Pa.Super.Ct. 340. The Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, on appeal, reversed the judgments of the court below and decided that the statute was a valid exercise of the police power of the state, and therefore, both as to form and substance, was not repugnant to the Fourteenth Amendment. 206 Pa. 469.
of Pennsylvania would have authorized such an attachment is also clear. Furness v. Smith, 30 Pa. 520, 522. It may not also be doubted that the State of Pennsylvania had authority to enact an applicable statute of limitations.
"In a word, the case before the court is one in which the private property of one person was, without her knowledge or consent, transferred to another who, in reality, had no shadow of a right to it, by virtue of an ex parte proceeding of which the owner had no lawful notice. Is it possible that such a manifest infringement of the fundamental and inherent rights which belong to every person in the use and enjoyment of his private property can be construed to be due process of law?"
"If the plaintiff's departure from Pennsylvania and her omission to demand her arrearages for the period of eleven years work an injury to anyone, it was to herself alone, and not to any public right such as would bring this case within the police power of the state. Plaintiff was under no legal obligation to remain in Reading."
does not remain abandoned without some one representing it, and without an owner. . . ."
And it may not be doubted that the power to deal with the estate of an absentee was recognized and exerted not only by the common law of Germany, but also by the codes of the various states of the continent of Europe. De Saint Joseph Concordance entre les Codes Civils Etrangers et le Code Napoleon, vol. 1, page 11.
Provisions similar in character to those of the Code Napoleon were incorporated in the Civil Code of Louisiana of 1808, under the head of absentees, in book 1 of that code, defining the status of persons, and such provisions have been in force from that day to the present time. Louisiana Civil Code, article 47 et seq. The provisions of that code on the subject were referred to by this Court in Scott v. McNeal, 154 U. S. 34, 154 U. S. 41. Under the law of England, as stated in that case, a presumption of death arose from an absence of seven years without being heard from, and whilst it is true, as we shall hereafter have occasion to say, that such presumption was not conclusive, and was rebuttable, nevertheless the very fact of the presumption occasioned by absence, irrespective of the force of the presumption, was a manifestation of the power to give legal effect to the status arising from absence.
be exerted without violating the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment if the administrative proceeding, brought into play under the exercise of the authority, is made binding upon the absentee if it should subsequently develop that he was alive when the administration was initiated. To sustain this proposition, numerous decisions of state courts of last resort are relied upon, which are enumerated in the margin, * and special reliance is placed upon the decision of this Court in Scott v. McNeal, 154 U. S. 34, 154 U. S. 41. We are of opinion, however, that the cases relied upon, with one or two exceptions hereafter to be noticed, are inapposite to this case. The leading cases were reviewed in Scott v. McNeal, and their inapplicability to the present case will therefore be demonstrated by a brief consideration of Scott v. McNeal.
subject to be administered and disposed of by the probate court."
"On the contrary, that law, in its very terms, appears to us to recognize and assume the death of the owner to be a fundamental condition and prerequisite to the exercise by the probate court of jurisdiction to grant letters testamentary or of administration upon his estate, or to license anyone to sell his lands for the payment of his debts."
"Under such a statute, according to the overwhelming weight of authority, as shown by the cases cited in the earlier part of this opinion, the jurisdiction of the court to which is committed the control and management of the estates of deceased persons, by whatever name it is called -- ecclesiastical court, probate court, orphans' court, or court of the ordinary or the surrogate -- does not exist or take effect before death. All proceedings of such courts in the probate of wills and the granting of administrations depend upon the fact that a person is dead, and are null and void if he is alive. Their jurisdiction in this respect being limited to the estate of deceased persons, they have no jurisdiction whatever to administer and dispose of the estates of living persons of full age and sound mind, or to determine that a living man is dead, and thereupon undertake to dispose of his estate."
clear that it was alone decided that, under a law giving jurisdiction to probate courts to administer the estates of deceased persons, even although a rebuttable presumption existed as to death after a certain time, that, if such presumption was subsequently rebutted by the proof of the fact of life, the court, whose authority depended upon death, was devoid of jurisdiction.
We have said that two of the cases relied upon would be separately noticed. Those cases are Carr v. Brown, 20 R.I. 217, and Clapp v. Houg, 12 N.D. 600. In the first case, there was a statute of Rhode Island providing for administration under the presumption of death after an absence of seven years, and it was decided that the statute was void. The opinion leads to the view that the conclusion of the court was primarily based upon the construction that the statute did not create a conclusive presumption conferring jurisdiction in the event the absentee was alive, and not dead. In the second case, there was also a statute of the State of North Dakota, but the court held it to be void because of the inadequacy of the notice for which it provided. There are in both of the cases expressions tending to the view that the state was without power to provide by special legislation for the administration of the property of an absentee. Insofar, of course, as these views were rested upon the state constitution, we are not concerned with them. Insofar, however, as they intimate that, by the operation of the Fourteenth Amendment, the states are deprived of power to legislate concerning the estates of absentees, we do not approve them.
two is well illustrated in Pennsylvania, for in that state, prior to the enactment of the statute in question, it had been expressly decided that a court of probate, as such, was absolutely wanting in jurisdiction to administer the estate of a person who was alive simply because there existed a presumption which was rebuttable as to the fact of death. This is also aptly illustrated by the law of Louisiana. In that state, as we have seen, provisions have existed from the beginning for the administration of the estates of absentees, as distinct from the power conferred upon the courts of probate to administer the estates of deceased persons. In this condition of the law, under an averment of death, an estate was opened in a probate court of Louisiana, and administered upon. A question as to the validity of that administration subsequently arose in Burns v. Van Loan, 29 La.Ann. 560, 563. As the proceedings were probate proceedings not taken under the statute providing for the administration of the estates of absentees, the Supreme Court of the State of Louisiana declared them to be absolutely void. As it cannot be denied that, in substance, the Pennsylvania statute is a special proceeding for the administration of the estates of absentees, distinct from the general law of that state providing for the settlement of the estates of deceased persons, and as, by the express terms of the statute, jurisdiction was conferred upon the proper court to grant the administration, it follows that the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania did not deprive the plaintiff in error of due process of law within the intendment of the Fourteenth Amendment.
resulting from absence for a brief period, would be a want of due process of law, and therefore repugnant to the Fourteenth Amendment. Let it be further conceded, as we also think is essential, that a state law which did not provide adequate notice as prerequisite to the proceedings for the administration of the estate of an absentee would also be repugnant to the Fourteenth Amendment. Again, let it be conceded that, if a state law, in providing for the administration of the estate of an absentee, contained no adequate safeguards concerning property, and amounted therefore simply to authorizing the transfer of the property of the absentee to others, that such a law would be repugnant to the Fourteenth Amendment. We think none of these concessions are controlling in this case. So far as the period of absence provided by the statute in question, it certainly cannot be said to be unreasonable. So far as the notices which it directs to be issued, we think they were reasonable. As concerns the safeguards which the statute creates for the protection of the interest of the absentee in case he should return, we content ourselves with saying that we think, as construed by the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, the provisions of the statute do not conflict with the Fourteenth Amendment.
* French v. Frazier (1832), 7 J. J. Marsh. 425, 432; State v. White (1846) 7 Ired. 116; Duncan v. Stewart (1854), 25 Ala. 408, 414; Moore v. Smith (1858), 11 Rich.L. 569; Jochumsen v. Suffolk Savings Bank (1861), 3 Alle 87; Morgan v. Dodge (1862), 44 N.H. 255, 259; Withers v. Patterson (1864), 27 Tex. 491, 498; Quidort v. Pergeaux (1867), 18 N.J.Eq. 472, 477; Melia v. Simmons (1878), 45 Wis. 334, 337; D'Arusment v. Jones (1880), 4 Lea 251; Devlin v. Commonwealth (1882), 101 Pa. 273; Stevenson v. Superior Court (1882), 62 Cal. 60, 65; Thomas v. People (1883), 107 Ill. 517; Perry v. St. Joseph & W. R. Co. (1883), 29 Kan. 420, 423; Epping v. Robinson (1884), 21 Fla. 36, 49; Martin v. Robinson (1887), 67 Tex. 368; Springer v. Shavender (1895), 116 N.C. 12, 118 N.C. 33; Carr v. Brown (1897), 20 R.I. 217; Clapp v. Houg (1904), 12 N.D. 600.

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