Blount v. Walker/Opinion of the Court

by Melville Fuller

United States Supreme Court

134 U.S. 607

Blount  v.  Walker

The federal question relied on to sustain our jurisdiction is that the supreme court of South Carolina did not give full faith and credit to the judgment of the probate court of Wilson county, N. C., admitting Mrs. Blount's will to probate.

We cannot see that any such question is presented by this record. The probate court of Wilson county, N. C., had no jurisdiction to declare the will duly executed 'according to the laws of South Carolina,' or that it was a good execution of the power of appointment, and did not undertake to adjudge to that effect, and it is not denied that Mrs. Blount's will was not executed according to those laws. The supreme court of South Carolina did not refuse to the judgment of the probate court of North Carolina full faith* and credit. It assumed that the will was properly admitted to probate in North Carolina, as well as in South Carolina, by an exemplification thereof, under the statute to that effect in the latter state, but it held that when Mrs. Harris prescribed the mode in which the power of appointment should be exercised, by the use of the words 'by her last will and testament duly executed,' she intended a will duly executed according to the laws of South Carolina, and not a will duly executed according to the laws of any state or country in which the donee of the power, Mrs. Blount, might happen to be domiciled at the time of her death. The probate of Mrs. Blount's will in North Carolina established that the will was executed according to the law of the state where she was domiciled, but it did not establish that the will was executed according to the law of South Carolina, as it is conceded it was not. When, therefore, the supreme court of South Carolina, in construing Mrs. Harris' will, arrived at the conclusion that the estate of the latter would only pass to such person as might receive an appointment by a will duly executed according to the laws of South Carolina, that was an end of the case, and whether that conclusion was right or wrong is a matter with which we are not concerned. If we were of a different opinion, and, entertaining jurisdiction, were to reverse the judgment of the supreme court of South Carolina, we should do it upon the ground that that court erred in the construction of Mrs. Harris' will, and not upon any ground connected with the judgment of the probate court of North Carolina, which could not and did not determine that question. Counsel says that the position of the plaintiff in error is 'that the decision of the state court necessarily involved the question whether the will of Mrs. Blount was her 'last will and testament duly executed;' that the judgment of the probate court of North Carolina is conclusive of this; and whether in the decision the state court has given this judgment the same force and effect as it has in North Carolina is the federal question.' But the state court conceded that the judgment of the probate court of North Carolina established that the will of Mrs. Blount was her last will and testament duly executed, and its decision did not in the slightest degree proceed upon the denial of that fact, but gave the judgment the same force and effect that it had in North Carolina; for in neither of the states would the will, as such, dispose of property that did not belong to the testatrix. To give this court jursidiction of a writ of error to a state court, it must appear affirmatively, not only that a federal question was presented for decision to the highest court of the state having jurisdiction, but that its decision was necessary to the determination of the cause, and that it was actually decided, or that the judgment as rendered could not have been given without deciding it. Water-Works Co. v. Sugar Refining Co., 125 U.S. 18, 29, 8 Sup. Ct. Rep. 741; Klinger v. Missouri, 13 Wall. 257, 263; De Saussure v. Gaillard, 127 U.S. 216, 8 Sup. Ct. Rep. 1053; Hopkins v. McLure, 133 U.S. 380, ante, 407. The motion to dismiss the writ of error must be sustained. Writ of error dismissed.

Notes