Source: https://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-supreme-court/241/99.html
Timestamp: 2019-04-25 09:13:37+00:00

Document:
Mr. William T. Hutchings for plaintiff in error.
Messrs. Napoleon B. Maxey and Charles F. Runyan for defendants in error.
This was a suit to set aside a will probated in common form, and to avoid its probate. The suit was begun in the United States court for the Indian Territory, wherein the will had been probated, and was transferred to an Oklahoma court when that state was admitted into the Union. The plaintiff ultimately prevailed and the supreme court [241 U.S. 99, 100] of the state affirmed the judgment. 38 Okla. 596, 134 Pac. 859, 43 Okla. 267, 142 Pac. 755.
As the functions of the probate and circuit courts in Arkansas were united in a single court in the Indian Territory, it seems plain, as was held by the supreme court of Oklahoma in this case, that the sections ( 6509 and 6521) dealing with appeals from the probate to the circuit court were not applicable to the conditions in the Indian Territory, and therefore were not adopted by the act of Congress. It hardly was intended that a court at all times presided over by a single judge should entertain appeals from its own decisions.
The contention advanced respecting 6523 is that it related only to decisions of the circuit court upon appeals from the probate court, and was inapplicable where such an appeal could not be had, and therefore was not adopted. [241 U.S. 99, 102] This point was not considered in the opinion of the supreme court of Oklahoma, and it need not be decided here. However it might be resolved, the result in the present case would be the same.
The contention made respecting 6525 is that it was not adopted, because not in force in Arkansas at the close of the session of the general assembly of 1883. The claim that it was not then in force is based upon a decision of the supreme court of Arkansas in 1885, holding that it was impliedly repealed by the inclusion in the civil practice act of 1868, which was a later enactment, of certain provisions regulating appeals from the probate to the circuit court, and prescribing the effect to be given to the latter's decision upon such an appeal. Dowell v. Tucker, 46 Ark. 438. Of course, that decision was controlling in Arkansas, but it has little bearing upon the question here presented, and for these reasons: Section 6525 was published in 1884 in Mansfield's Digest as a general law 'in force at the close of the general assembly of 1883' (see title page of that publication), and the supreme court of the state had been treating it as such (Tobin v. Jenkins, 29 Ark. 151; Janes v. Williams, 31 Ark. 175, 189; Jenkins v. Tobin, 31 Ark. 306, 308; Mitchell v. Rogers, 40 Ark. 91, 93-95). Besides, the particular provisions of the civil practice act which ultimately were regarded as effecting its implied repeal in Arkansas-they became 6509 and 6521 of Mansfield's Digest-were not adopted by the act of Congress, because inapplicable to the conditions in the Indian Territory. In these circumstances we think the adopting act, rightly interpreted, put the section in force there. Separated, as it then was, from the restraining influence of the supposedly conflicting provisions of the civil practice act, it assumed its normal place among the other laws with which it was adopted. This conclusion is not opposed to our decisions in Adkins v. Arnold, 235 U.S. 417 , 59 L. ed. 294, 35 Sup. Ct. Rep. 118, and Perryman v. Woodward, 238 U.S. 148 , 59 L. ed. 1242, 35 Sup. Ct. Rep. 830, as [241 U.S. 99, 103] seems to be claimed by the plaintiff in error, but, on the contrary, is in accord with what actually was there decided.
Other questions are discussed in the briefs, but as they are not Federal, but essentially local, they cannot be re-examined by us.

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