Case Name: In re ESTATE OF HENRY COIT
Court: District of Columbia Court of Appeals
Jurisdiction: District of Columbia
Decision Date: 1894-05-07
Citations: 3 D.C. App. 246
Docket Number: No. 223
Parties: In re ESTATE OF HENRY COIT.
Judges: 
Reporter: Reports of Cases Adjudged in the Court of Appeals of the District of Columbia
Volume: 3
Pages: 246–251

Head Matter:
In re ESTATE OF HENRY COIT.
Administration ; Death and Intestacy, Proof of; Government Claims as Assets.
1. Before administration can properly be granted in this District upon the estate of one who died in a foreign jurisdiction, it must, under the act of Maryland of- 1798, Ch. 101, Subch. 5, Sec. 2, be shown that a considerable part of his personal estate is situated, or is supposed to be situated here; and the death of such person and his intestacy must be shown to the satisfaction of the probate court.
2. If the record on an - appeal by an administrator from an order of the probate court revoking his letters, as improvidently granted, fails to show upon what evidence the death and intestacy of the alleged decedent were proved, such order will not be reversed.
3. Debts due from the government have no locality at the seat of government, and, the executor or administrator of a deceased creditor of the government, appointed in the State where the deceased was domiciled at his death, has authority to demand and receive payment, and give a discharge of the debt due his testator or intestate in any place where the government may choose to pay it.
4. A claim against the government does not furnish the foundation for local administration in this District, when the deceased claimant was domiciled in another jurisdiction at the time of his death.
No. 223.
Submitted January 16, 1894.
Decided May 7, 1894.
Hearing on an appeal by an administrator from a decree of the Supreme Court of the District of Columbia, holding a special term for Orphans’ Court business, revoking his letters of administration on the ground that the court had been without jurisdiction to grant them.
Affirmed.
The Court in its opinion stated the case as follows:
This case has relation to and is one of many incidents that have grown out of the destruction of the celebrated private armed brig Geiteral Armstrong, by the British naval force in the neutral port of Fayal, in 1814. After long and persistent claiming, and the exhaustion of all means of negotiation between this government and the government of Portugal, without obtaining indemnity for those entitled, the Congress of the United States, by act of May 1, 1882, made provision for rewarding and indemnifying the captain, officers and crew of the brig, in consideration of their heroic resistance of an overpowering force, and for indemnifying the owners of the brig for their loss in the destruction of their vessel. It is under this act that the fund had its origin that has given rise to this case.
The act of Congress referred to is entitled “ An act for the relief of the captain, owners, officers and crew of the United States private armed brig General Armstrong, their heirs, executors, administrators, agents or assigns.” The act provides “ that the Secretary of State be and is hereby authorized and directed to examine and adjust the claims of the captain, owners, officers and crew of the late private armed brig Ge?ieral Armstrong, growing out of the destruction of said brig by a British force in the neutral port of Fayal, in September, eighteen hundred and fourteen, upon the evidence established before the Court of Claims and to settle the same on principles of justice and equity; and that he be and is hereby further authorized and directed to draw his requisition in favor of said claimants, their heirs, executors, administrators, agents or assigns, for the amount which may be by him found due to said claimants, on the Secretary-of the Treasury, not exceeding seventy thousand seven hundred and thirty-nine dollars, the amount proved before the Court of Claims, who is authorized to pay the same out of any money in the Treasury not otherwise appropriated.”
It appears that the Secretary of State, acting under the authority delegated to him by the act of Congress, examined and adjusted the claims of the parties, and made distribution to the amount of $54,342.48, leaving a balance of the amount limited in the act, of $16,396.52 unclaimed.
It is alleged that H'enry Coit, deceased, was one of the owners and stockholders of the brig General Armstrong; and that he died, according to information and belief, in New York, about the year 1862. On this information and belief, application was made by the appellant in this case, Samuel C. Reed, to the Supreme Court of this District sitting for Orphans’ Court business, for letters of administration upon the estate of Henry Coit, deceased. In that application it was alleged that, under the act of Congress before referred to, the legal representatives of the deceased were entitled to receive the sum of $1,433-33, his proportionate share of the brig. It is further alleged that the applicant is a creditor of the said Henry Coit, deceased, in respect to services rendered in the prosecution of the claim against the Government.
Upon this application, the appellant, alleging himself to be one of the creditors of the deceased, asked to be appointed administrator of said Coit, deceased; and thereupon, after order of publication published, and no cause to the contrary being shown, the court, by order of the 4th of December, 1891, appointed the appellant administrator of the estate of Henry Coit, deceased, in this District. And he thereupon qualified as required by the order.
Subsequently, on the 3d of June, 1892, the United States, by their Attorney-General, intervened by way of information and suggestion, and gave the court to understand, among other reasons and causes for cancelling the letters of administration granted to the appellant, that the allegation made by the latter that he is a creditor of Henry Coit, deceased, is unfounded in fact, and that the claim had been decided against him; that río proper proof had been furnished of the-death of said Henry Coit; and that if said Coit died in the State of New York, as alleged by the appellant, administration should be had in that State, and not in the District of Columbia, where no assets of said Coit are to be found or shown to exist — said claim against the United States having no situs in said District; and claiming, moreover, that if it be true that said Coit died leaving no next of kin within the limits prescribed by law, the part of the balance of the award to which he Avas entitled escheated to the United States.
Upon filing this information and suggestion, rule was laid upon the appellant to show cause why the letters of administration held by him should not be revoked; and, upon answer to the rule, the court below revoked and cancelled the letters as having been illegally and improvidently granted. It is from this latter order that the present appeal is taken.
Mr. Samuel C. Reed, the administrator, appeared in proper person.
Mr. C. H. Arms, Asst. United States Attorney for the District of Columbia, for the United States.

Opinion:
Mr. Chief Justice Alvey
delivered the opinion of the Court:
To determine the question presented, as to whether this order of revocation was proper, it becomes necessary to examine the grounds upon which letters of administration can be properly and lawfully granted in this District, upon the estate of a decedent whose domicile was, at the time of his death, in one of the States of the Union.
By the Maryland act of 1798, Ch. 101, Subch. 5, Sec. 2, in force in this District, it is provided that "in case the party neither has mansion or residence, nor died within the State, letters may be granted in the county wherein lies, or is supposed to lie, a considerable part of the party's personal estates And by the next succeeding section of the same statute, it is declared that " it shall be incumbent on any person applying for such letters to prove such dying intestate to the satisfaction of the court, unless the same be notorious; and the court may examine such person, on oath or affirmation, touching the time, place and manner of the death, and whether or not the party dying left any will; and if such dying intestate be not proved to the satisfaction of the court, no letters of administration shall be granted."
There is nothing in the record before us to show that the party deceased, upon whose estate letters of administration were granted, had any personal estate, or any estate whatever, in this District, that constituted, or that could be denominated local assets, such as to require administration in this jurisdiction. Nor is there anything in the record to show upon what evidence or by what means, it was proven to the satisfaction of the court that Henry Coit had died intestate.
On this state of the record, therefore, we could not say that there had been error in revoking the letters of administration, as having been improvidently and inadvertently granted.
But to meet the objection that there was no evidence offered to prove the death of Henry Coit, or, if dead, that he had died without descendants, or next of kin, the applicant has filed in this court with and as part of a supplemental brief, in this case, an authenticated copy of the will of Henry Coit, deceased, showing that it was , made on the 16th of March, 1875; and was admitted to probate in the office of the Surrogate's Court in and for the city and county of New York, in May, 1876. By this will, the testator, after some small legacies to his grandchildren, devised and bequeathed all the rest and residue of his estate to his two daughters, and he appointd his son-in-law and his two daughters executor and executrices of his will. This proof, thus furnished by the appellant himself, shows that the letters of administration granted to him were founded upon suggestions and allegations wholly unfounded in fact. This may have been, as suggested by the appellant, owing to inadvertence and indisposition of the appellant at the time; but this court can hardly be expected to reverse the order of revocation appealed from with this proof before it.
But, apart from these objections, it is shown by the facts set forth in the application for the letters of administration, that the letters were improvidently granted. In that application it is alleged that Henry Coit died in the city of New York, and that the only object of obtaining letters of administration here was to enable the administrator to demand of and receive from the Government of the United States the proportion to which Henry Coit was entitled, as one of the owners of the brig General Armstrong, of the amount of money appropriated by the act of Congress of the 1st of May, 1882. To collect this money of the Government no local administrator of the decedent's estate was required in this District. It has been settled by repeated decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States that debts due from the Government of the United States have no locality at the seat of government. The United States, in their sovereign capacity, have no particular place of domicile, but possess in contemplation of law an ubiquity throughout the Union; and the debts due by them are not to be treated like the debts of a private debtor, which constitute local assets in his own domicile. The executor or administrator of a creditor of the Government, duly appointed in the State where the deceased was domiciliated at his death, has full authority to demand and receive payment, and to give a full discharge of the debt due his testator or intestate, in any place where the Government may choose to pay it, whether it be at the seat of government, or at any other place where the funds may be deposited. This principle was expressly settled by the Supreme Court in the case of Vaughan v. Northup, 15 Pet., 1, in an opinion delivered by Mr. Justice Story, and the same doctrine has been reiterated and followed in the recent case of Wyman v. Halstead, 109 U. S., 654, in a very clear opinion by Mr Justice Gray.
It is clear, therefore, that any claim or demand against the Government of the United States, accruing under the act of Congress of May 1, 1882, and payable to the legal representatives of the decedent, Coit, was and is demandable by and payable to such legal representatives appointed in the State of New York, where the deceased was domiciled at the time of his death. Indeed, such claim against the Government does not furnish the foundation for a local administration in this District, when the decedent was domiciled in another jurisdiction at the time of his death. King v. United States, 27 Ct. Cl., 529.
Order affirmed.