Hamilton v. Traber

McSherry, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. The question to be decided in this case arises upon an appeal from an order overruling exceptions to the ratification of a sale of certain leasehold and fee simple property situated in Baltimore City. The sale was made under a decree passed by. the Circuit Court, and the decree was founded upon a bill filed by Minnie Hamil ²⁷ ton, by her husband and next friend, James H. Hamilton, against Augusta Trabor. The bill alleges that the plaintiff is a niece of the defendant; that the defendant is possessed of the property therein referred to ; that she is about sixty-five years of age, and is physically and mentally weak and infirm, and is in a state of childishness, dotage, and imbecility, and is incapable of the government of herself and the management of her estate ; that it would be to the manifest interest and advantage of the defendant that the projjerty should be sold, and the incumbrances of taxes, ground rents, &c., should be paid off, and the balance invested for her interest and benefit, or held subject to the order and jurisdiction of the Court.

The relief prayed was that a decree might be passed, appointing a trustee to sell the property and to pay off the incumbrances, and for an investment of the balance; and there was also a prayer for general relief. The bill was sworn to and filed on April the twenty-first, 1892. On the same day a subpcena was issued for the defendant, returnable on the second Monday of the following May. On May the fourth, or five days before the return day of the subpcena had arrived, an order was passed, upon the petition of the plaintiff, appointing W. R. Brewer guardian ad litem to answer for the defendant, and on the same day the guardian ad litem filed an answer in the usual form, neither admitting nor denying the averments of the bill, and immediately thereupon a general replication was put in, and an order was passed, granting the parties leave to take testimony, and testimony was taken in behalf of the plaintiff on May the fifth and ninth.

On the first of June, 1892, a decree was signed, adjudging the defendant incapable of managing her estate and property, by reason of her mental unsoundness, declaring that it would be to her interest and advantage to have the property sold, and appointing trustees to make the sale. ²⁸ Finally, after some other proceedings were had, which we need not allude- to, as they have no bearing on the matter now before us, a sale of Augusta Traber’s property was made, under the decree, to one John Hand, and the sale was duljr reported to the Court. Thereupon the purchaser filed exceptions to the ratification of the sale. These exceptions all assert that the Court had no jurisdiction to decree the sale upon the bill filed. After a hearing the Court (Dennis, J.,) overruled the exceptions, and finally ratified the sale, and from that order this appeal was taken.

If the Court had jurisdiction to pass the decree, any mere irregularity in the proceeding, or defect in the proof could not be availed of to impeach the decree collaterally. This has been repeatedly held by this Court. But, if the Court was wholly without jurisdiction to decree the sale of the property in the proceedings then before it, the purchaser may successfully rely upon that want of jurisdiction to avoid the sale, because the decree would, in such a case, be an absolute nullity. If it be an absolute nullity it is no decree at all, and can never be treated or regarded as one.

At the very threshold of the case, then, lies the inquiry: Did the Court below have jurisdiction as the case was presented, to pass the decree under which the sale was made ? Now, the bill does not show upon its face, nor does the evidence disclose, that the plaintiff had the least interest 'in the subject-matter of the proceeding. She had no title to, or lien on, or claim against the property of the defendant, nor had she ever been clothed, by judicial warrant or otherwise, with the slightest authority to manage, control, or interfere with the person or estate of Mrs. Traber. She was a mere volunteer, who asked a Court of equity to decree the sale of an estate belonging to some one else, not for the benefit of the plaintilf, or because of any right which the plaintiff had therein, ²⁹ but solely for the alleged purpose of subserving the interest of the owner.

She sought, without being beneficially concerned in the properly herself, to take it from the possession, and out of the ownership of the defendant, and to have it sold, upon and because of the mere allegations that she was a niece of the owner, and that the latter was mentally incapable of managing it. To such a bill a demurrer would have been successful. Story’s Eq. PL, secs. 503, 728; Sellman vs. Sellman, 63 Md., 520 , and that is the recognized test of whether the Court had jurisdiction or not.

Tomlinson, et al. vs. Mc-Kaig, et al., 5 Gill, 256 . Of course, we must be understood as dealing with the bill before us, and not with a totally different or dissimilar case, like, for instance, that of Rebecca Oioings, 1 Bland, 294 , where the interposition of the Court is asked in behalf of a non compos mentis for the protection, and not for the sale, of the latter’s property. But apart from this phase of the jurisdictional question, which we have deemed it only necessary to mention, without fully discussing, there is another and more important aspect, which we now proceed to examine. Lunacy or mental unsoundness did not give the English Court of Chancery jurisdiction over the person or estate of a lunatic until after an inquisition of a jury, adjudging the person to be a non compos mentis had been regularly found.

The authority directing the inquisition to be taken did not pertain to that Court, but was derived by delegation from the crown — it was a portion of the King’s executive power asjoarens patriae, and did not belong to the Court of Chancery by virtue of its inherent and general judicial functions. This branch of the regal authority was delegated to the Chancellor, as the personal representative of the crown, by means of an official instrument called the “sign manual,” signed by the King’s own signature, and sealed with ³⁰ his own privy seal, and was exercised by the Chancellor alone, and not by the Court of Chancery. 3 Pom. Eq., sec. 1311; Eyre vs. Countess of Shaftsbury, 2 P. Wms., 103; Oxenden vs. Lord Compton, 2 Ves., 69; Lysaght vs. Royse, 2 Sch. & Lef., 151; In re Fitzgerald, Lunatic, Ib., 432. Anciently, in point of fact, the custody of the persons and property of idiots and lunatics, or, at least of those who held lauds, was not in the crown but in the lord of the fee.

The Statute De Prerogative Regis, the 7th of Edward II, ch. 9, gave to the King the custody of idiots, and also vested in him the profits of the idiot’s lands during his life. By this means the crown acquired a beneficial interest in the lands, and, as a special warrant from the crown is in all cases necessary to any grant of its interest, the separate commission which gave the Lord Chancellor jurisdiction over the persons and property of idiots may be referred to this consideration. With respect to lunatics the Statute of 11 Ediuard II, ch. 10, enacted that the King should provide that their lands and tenements should be kept without waste. It conferred merely a power, which could not be considered as included within-the general jurisdiction antecedently conferred on the Court of Chancery, and therefore a separate and special commission became necessary for the delegation of this new power.

Story Eq., sec. 1335. The existence of this vested interest in the crown is the reason that mere lunacy did not originate the jurisdiction of the Court of Chancery over the persons and estates of idiots and lunatics, but the lunacy had first to be inquired of by a jury, and found of record in accordance with the rule of law, wherever a right of entry is alleged in the crown. After this special jurisdiction conferred by the “sign manual” had been exercised in any particular case by adjudging an individual to be a lunatic, and by appointing a committee of his person and property, a further ³¹ jurisdiction then arose in the Gourt of Ghancery to supervise and control the official conduct of the committee. 3 Pom. Eq., sec. 1311; Ex parte Grimstone, Amb., 707.

The power of the committee to deal with the estate was, at common law, very limited. It was restricted to the preservation of the estate, and to the application of the rents and income to the proper support and maintenance of the lunatic, to the exclusion even of creditors, if necessary. Ex parte Dikes, 8 Ves., 79; Hastings, Ex parte, 14 Ves., 182. Brrt the jurisdiction of the Court of Chancery, acquired in the manner just stated, and after the preliminary finding of an inquisition, did