Whitney v. Fox/Opinion of the Court

by John Marshall Harlan

United States Supreme Court

166 U.S. 637

Whitney  v.  Fox

At the hearing of this cause in the inferior territorial court, the first testimony offered in plaintiff's behalf was his own deposition, taken in a suit in the supreme court of New York, wherein he and Wood were plaintiffs, and Joab Lawrence, then living, was the defendant; that case being substantially for the same cause of action presented in this case. The court ruled that Whitney's deposition could not be received, except for the purpose of impeaching him; nor was his evidence in the former action admissible, he being present in court and orally testifying in this suit. This action of the court is assigned for error. But as the deposition was not made a part of, and is not in, the record, we cannot say that its exclusion was prejudicial to the rights of the plaintiff. Amend. Rule 21, 14 Wall. xii.; Buckstaff v. Russell & Co., 151 U.S. 626, 636, 14 Sup. Ct. 448; Shauer v. Alterton, 151 U.S. 607, 14 Sup. Ct. 442.

Whitney testified in this action on his own behalf, but the court ruled that his testimony as to any matter of fact occurring before the death of Lawrence, and equally within the knowledge of both, could not be received in his own behalf. Was this error? Among those who are disqualified by the statutes of Utah from being witnesses are 'parties or assignors of parties to an action or proceeding, or persons in whose behalf an action or proceeding is prosecuted, against an executor or administrator upon a claim or demand against the estate of a deceased person, as to any matter of fact occurring before the death of such deceased person, and equally within the knowledge of both the witness and the deceased person.' 2 Comp. Laws Utah 1888, p. 427, tit. 10, c. 2. The supreme court of Utah held that, under this statute, Whitney was incompetent to testify as to any fact equally within the knowledge of himself and Lawrence. It is said that the Utah statute was copied substantially from a statute of California which declared incompetent, as witnesses, 'parties or assignors of parties to an action or proceeding, or persons in whose behalf an action or proceeding is prosecuted against an executor or administrator, upon a claim or demand against the estate of a deceased person as to any matter of fact occurring before the death of such deceased person.' Deering's Code Civ. Proc. § 1880. The contention is that the interpretation placed by the supreme court of California upon the statute of that state should be followed in this case. We are referred to Myers v. Reinstein, 67 Cal. 89, 7 Pac. 192, in which case the plaintiff sought a decree establishing a trust in his favor in a certain piece of land. The alleged trustee was dead when the case was heard. The court said: 'We are of opinion that the witness was competent. The action was not on a claim or demand against the estate of Reinstein. The plaintiff asserted that the interest in the land sued for constituted no part of Reinstein's estate, but was held in trust by Reinstein for Collins or his assigns, and after his death by the defendants, his devisees and successors. The defendants asserted that no such trust existed, but that Reinstein, their devisor, held the lands as his own estate, and that they had succeeded to his right. The very question to be determined here was whether the interest sought to be recovered was a part of Reinstein's estate or not. If it was a part of his estate, then no trust existed; he held it in trust in his lifetime, and the interest passed to his successors to the legal title, clothed with the trust. To hold that the claim or demand here attempted to be enforced was a part of the estate, and thus render the witness incompetent, would be to determine in advance the very question to be determined on the trial of the action. By so holding we would assume the very question to be tried and settled by the contestation between the parties. This we are not allowed to do.'

The supreme court of Utah evidently entertained a different view of the Utah statute; for the claim asserted by Whitney in this case was, in the judgment of that court, 'not only a claim against an estate, but one for many thousands.' The relief sought was a decree declaring Whitney to be the equitable owner of one-eighth of the Mansion House, in Detroit, and entitled to the rents, issues, and profits thereof, as well as to part of the 3,000 shares of the stock of the Eureka Hill Mining Company, and the dividends that had theretofore been declared thereon, and that the executors of Lawrence be required, not only to account to the plaintiff for all of the said rents, issues, profits, and dividends, but to convey to him an undivided one-eighth interest in the real property, and assign to him a like proportion of such stock. It was also asked that a receiver be appointed to receive the dividends on the stock, and the rents, issues, and profits of the realty. We cannot doubt that the claims asserted in this suit by Whitney are, within the meaning of the Utah statute, claims or demands against the estate of a deceased person; and consequently, Lawrence being dead, Whitney was incompetent to testify to any fact touching said claims or demands that occurred before Lawrence's death, and were equally within the knowledge of both Whitney and Lawrence. The supreme court of Utah properly rejected the suggestion that such claim or demand was not against the estate of Lawrence. To say that the only issue here was whether the real property and stock described in the petition constituted a part of Lawrence's estate, and that no claim or demand was asserted against the estate, would be to defeat what, it seems to us, was the manifest object of the statute. While, as said by this court in Coulam v. Doull, 133 U.S. 216, 233, 10 Sup. Ct. 253, it is the ordinary rule to accept the interpretation given to a statute by the courts of the country by which it was originally adopted, the rule is not an absolute one, to be followed under all circumstances. We concur in the interpretation placed upon the Utah statute by the supreme court of Utah, as one required by the obvious meaning of its provisions, and we do not feel obliged, by the above rule, to reject that interpretation because apparently the highest court of the state from which the statute was taken has, in a single decision, taken a different view. We therefore hold that, to the extent indicated by the court below, Whitney was an incompetent witness as to any fact occurring before the death of Lawrence, and equally within the knowledge of both.

It remains to inquire whether the judgment was right upon the merits. The supreme court of the territory held that the suit was barred upon the grounds both of laches and of the statute of limitations of Utah. The undisputed facts make a case of such gross laches upon the part of Whitney as to forfeit all right to the aid of a court of equity. Equity will sometimes refuse relief where a shorter time than that prescribed by the statute of Iimitations has elapsed without suit. It ought always to do so where, as in this case, the delay in the assertion of rights is not adequately explained, and such circumstances have intervened in the condition of the adverse party as render it unjust to him or to his estate that a court of equity should assist the plaintiff. It is impossible to doubt that Whitney knew for many years, while Lawrence was in proper mental condition, that the latter did not admit, but denied, that the former had any just demand against him. But Whitney forbore to assert the rights which he now asserts, and although having abundant opportunity to do so, and having, if his present claims are just, every reason for promptness and diligence, he nevertheless slept upon his rights, and made no demand upon Lawrence, until disease had so far deprived the latter of his reason and faculties that he could not sufficiently comprehend any matter of business submitted to him. Under the peculiar circumstances of this case, the court below rightly held that the plaintiff's laches cut him off from any relief in equity. Badger v. Badger, 2 Wall. 87, 95; Hayward v. Bank, 96 U.S. 611, 617; Godden v. Kimmell, 99 U.S. 201; Lansdale v. Smith, 106 U.S. 391, 1 Sup. Ct. 350; Speidel v. Henrici, 120 U.S. 387, 7 Sup. Ct. 610; Richards v. Mackall, 124 U.S. 183, 188, 8 Sup. Ct. 437; Mackall v. Casilear, 137 U.S. 556, 566, 11 Sup. Ct. 178; Hammond v. Hopkins, 143 U.S. 224, 250, 274, 12 Sup. Ct. 418. In this view, it is unnecessary to consider whether the plaintiff's causes of action were barred by the statute of limitation.

The judgment is affirmed.

Notes