Wiley v. McComas

⁶³⁸ Urner, J., delivered the opinion of the court. In the Case of McComas v. Wiley, 134 Md. 572 , the appeal was from an order of the Orphans’ Court of Harford County, which dismissed a petition of the administrator of the estate of Mary Edith Wiley, claiming the personal estate of her deceased husband, on the ground that it had passed to her under his will, by which his whole estate was devised and bequeathed to her absolutely, it being alleged that she survived her husband, although both lost their lives in the same accident. The petition was dismissed by the orphans’ court upon the theory that the evidence in the case failed to prove the survivorship of Mrs. Wiley, and that nothing therefore became vested in her under the terms of her husband’s will. The conclusion of this court from the evidence was “that Mrs. Wiley survived her husband, and that by virtue of the provisions of his will in her favor the administrator of her estate is entitled to the fund in controversy.” In view of this conclusion the order of the Orphans’ Court was reversed and the cause remanded to the end that an order might be passed in accordance with our opinion.

The present suit is in ejectment, and it was brought by the heirs of Mrs. Wiley against the heirs of her husband, to recover the real estate of which he was seised at the time of his death. In the trial of the case below, the issue joined was held to be controlled and determined by the adjudication in the case presented on the previous appeal. Upon this theory the record of that case was admitted in evidence over objection by the defendants, and their proffers to prove that. Mrs. Wiley did not survive her husband were refused.

The prayers offered by the defendants in opposition to the theory of res adjicdicata were likewise rejected. These are the rulings to which the exceptions in the record refer, and they are all concerned with the single question as to whether the decision in the former case is conclusive of the issue involved in this action. ⁶³⁹ There are some very important differences between the pending case and the one previously decided. This is an action of ejectment to- try the title to real estate. That was a proceeding to assert a claim to personal property.

In this ease the parties are acting in their individual character as heirs at law. The petitioners and respondents in the other case were claiming and defending in their representative eaoaeities as administrators. The order of the orphans’ court entered in pursuance of our decision on the former1 appeal was passed in reference to a subject within its jurisdiction. The present issue is one which it had no authority to determine.

As originally filed the petition in the other case claimed the right of possession of both the real and personal property of the decedent. One of the grounds of a demurrer to the petition was that the determination of the ownership of the real estate was beyond the jurisdiction of the orphans’ court. The demurrer having been sustained and the petition dismissed, the case was appealed to this court, and is reported in 132 Md. 406 . In affirming the order below, without prejudice to the right to file a new petition, we held that so far as the real estate was concerned a question of title was involved which the orphans’ court had no power to adjudicate.

Because of that ruling no claim to the real estate was included in the subsequent proceeding, which resulted in the order reversed on the second appeal, and upon which the theory of rés adjudicate asserted in the present case is predicated. In order that a prior judicial decision may be conclusive of a question raised in a separate suit, it must have been a final judgment on the merits, rendered in the exercise, and within the scope, of a competent jurisdiction, and the subject and parties in both causes must be identical. These are all essential elements of the principle of res adjudicate*. A statement of the principle in the