Michigan Trust Co. v. Ferry, 228 U.S. 346 (1913)
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Michigan Trust Company v. Ferry
Nos. 200
, 201
Argued March 20, 1913
Decided April 21, 1913
228 U.S. 346
CERTIORARI TO THE CIRCUIT COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE EIGHTH CIRCUIT
Syllabus
While, ordinarily, jurisdiction over a person is based on the power of the sovereign to seize and imprison him, it is one of the decencies of civilization that, when the power exists and has been asserted at the beginning of a cause, the necessity of maintaining the physical power is dispensed with.
Under the full faith and credit clause of the federal Constitution, if a judicial proceeding is begun with jurisdiction over the person of the party concerned, it is within the power of the state to bind that person by every subsequent order in the cause.
A state may make the whole administration of the estate a single proceeding and provide that one undertaking it within the jurisdiction shall be subject to the order of the court until the estate is closed, and that he must account for all that he recovers by order of the probate court.
Under the law of Michigan, an executor who has been removed must account to the administrator de bonis non for all property that has come into his hands, and he is bound by a decree of the probate court in a proceeding in which he has been personally served with notice or appeared.
Courts of other jurisdictions owe great deference to what the court concerned with the case has done; the probabilities are that the local procedure follows the traditions of the place.
This Court will assume that the decree of a probate court charging an executor with all the goods of the testator that had come into his possession and with waste in neglect to pay over was within its jurisdiction.
Want of power of the court making it to enforce a decree does not affect its validity, and if the court had jurisdiction at the inception of the case, courts of other states must give it full faith and credit.
Jurisdiction is power, and is not affected by the insanity of one over whom the court has acquired jurisdiction, and an executor against whom a decree is entered after appearance, appointment of guardian ad litem, and full consideration of the case at the expense of the estate is not deprived of his property without due process of law by such decree.
175 F. 667, 681 reversed.
The facts, which involve the degree of full faith and credit to be given by the courts of one state to a decree of the probate court of another state, are stated in the opinion.