Case Name: Robert H. Garden vs. Theodore Hunt and Randall Hunt, Executors of Thomas Hunt
Court: South Carolina Court of Appeals
Jurisdiction: South Carolina
Decision Date: 1840-02
Citations: 1 Chev. Eq. 42
Docket Number: 
Parties: Robert H. Garden vs. Theodore Hunt and Randall Hunt, Executors of Thomas Hunt.
Judges: Harper, Johnson and Johnston, Ch., concurred.
Reporter: South Carolina Equity Reports
Volume: 15
Pages: 42–44

Head Matter:
Robert H. Garden vs. Theodore Hunt and Randall Hunt, Executors of Thomas Hunt.
Absent and non resident executors, of one deceased in this State, cannot be made amenable to suits in this Court, when neither they nor their testator have property in the State.
Before his Honor, Chancellor Dunkin, at Charleston, October, 1839.
The purpose of the bill, in this case, was to compel the executors to account for the proceeds of sale of a plantation, sold by Thomas Hunt, deceased, as Commissioner in Equity for Sumter District.
The complainant’s solicitors, upon affidavit that the defendants were absent from the State and resident in Louisi-iana, moved for an order in the usual form, requiring the
defendants to appear, within three months after the publication thereof, and plead, answer, or demur to the bill, in default whereof, it should be taken pro confesso.
The Chancellor refused to make this order, and the complainant appealed, on the following grounds:
1st. That the defendants, by proving' the will of their testator, and taking out Letters Testamentary in this State, assumed a trust having reference to property and rights within the jurisdiction of this State, and for which they were responsible to the same jurisdiction. And one of the necessary incidents of such trust is to answer in this jurisdiction to all demands against their testator.
2d. That the office of executor or administrator is a delegation of public authority, and as to all matters relating to such office, the person filling it, whether present or absent, is liable to the jurisdiction of this State.
3d. That the complainant’s demand having arisen out of an official transaction of the defendants’s testator, as Commissioner in Equity, the official relation continues as to the said demand, and constitutes a sufficient ground for the jurisdiction of the court existing in the subject matter of the suit itself.

Opinion:
Curia, per
Dunkin, Ch.
Both the defendants were resident beyond the limits of this State. Neither of them had property in the State, nor is it alleged that there were any assetts of the testator in the State. In Winstanly vs. Savage, (2 McC. C. R. 437,) it is said by the Chancellor "it is very certain that non-residents cannot be made amenable to suits in this court, unless they have property in the State." It is also there said that the Act of 1784, creating the Court of Chancery, and prescribing its course of proceedings, was not intended to introduce any new rule in this respect, but "only to regulate the proceedings in cases where non-residents .could be made amenable to the jurisdiction of the country, by holding property within it, which does undoubtedly give jurisdiction both at Law and in Equity.
Peronneau, Mazyck Sf Finley, for the motion.
It appears to the Court that this is a correct interpretation of the law, and that the order of the Circuit Court, made in conformity with it, must be affirmed.
Harper, Johnson and Johnston, Ch., concurred.