This subject has been frequently before the court, and we have repeatedly said, that, under such certificates of division, we have no jurisdiction. Without attempting to enumerate the cases, it is sufficient on the present occasion to refer to White v. Turk et al. (12 Peters, 238), and The United States v. Stone (14 Peters, 524), which are decisive of this case. It is unnecessary, therefore, to examine the printed arguments that have been filed, as the case must be dismissed for want of jurisdiction, This cause came on to be heard on the transcript of the record from the Circuit Court of the United States for the District of Michigan, and on the points and questions on which the judges of the said Circuit Court were opposed in opinion, and which were certified to this court for its opinion, agreeably to the act of Congress in such case made and provided, and was argued by counsel. And it appearing to this court, upon an inspection of the said transcript, that no point in the case within the meaning of the act of Congress has been certitied to this court, it is thereupon now here ordered and adjudged by this court, that this cause be, and the same is hereby dismissed; and that this cause be, and the same is hereby remanded to the said Circuit Court, to be proceeded in according to law. In September, 1837, the suit was revived against the administratrix, by a scire facias. *In November, 1837, she appeared to [*45 the suit and pleaded the general issue. On the 1st of December, 1838, the cause came on for trial, when the plaintiffs obtained a judgment for $6,080.99. On the same day, viz., the 1st December, 1838, Christopher Dart, for whose use the judgment was entered, made an assignment of it to John B. Thrasher, of Port Gibson, the nominal defendant in error in the present case. After this, however, a new trial was granted by the court of Claiborne County in the suit against Ann Lee, administratrix, which resulted in another judgment, for a different sum of money, in June, 1840. Another new trial was granted, and in December, 1840, another judgment was rendered against the administratrix for $6,988.05. Nothing further appears to have been done for some time, The next fact in the history of the case is, that David S. Stacy, the plaintiff in error in the present case, and a citizen of Louisiana, took out letters of administration upon the estate of Charles S. Lee, in the State of Louisiana. At what particular time these letters were taken out, the record does not show. In January, 1844, John B. Thrasher, to whom the judgment in Mississippi had been asCited-7 How., 192; 10 How., 55; 18 How., 569, 576; signed by Christopher Dart, as above stated, 3 Wall., 256. DAVID S. STACY, Administrator of Charles C. J. B. THRASHER, for the use of WILLIAM Action of debt will not lie against administrator in An action of debt will not lie against an administrator, in one of these United States, on a judgment obtained against a different administrator of the same intestate, appointed under the authority of another State. The doctrine of privity examined. THIS filed a petition in the Circuit Court of the United States for the Eastern District of LouiCharles S. Lee. Thrasher now stated himself siana, against Stacy, the administrator of to be suing for the use of William Sellers, and averred that Sellers and himself were both citstated himself to be the legal owner, by transizens of the State Mississippi. The petitioner fer and assignment, of a judgment for $6,988.05, which judgment was final and definitive. In February, 1844, Stacy appeared to the suit and filed the following exceptions and answer, which are according to the practice in Louisiana, and equivalent to a demurrer. "David S. Stacy, a citizen of the State of Louisiana, residing in the parish of Concordia, administrator of the succession of Charles S. Lee, in the State of Louisiana, under the appointment and authority of the Court of Probates of the parish of Concordia aforesaid, being made defendant in the above entitled suit, appears and pleads as follows, by way of exception: "1. That plaintiff in his petition does not In April, 1836, Charles S. Lee, a resident of allege or show that this honorable court has the County of Claiborne and State of Missis- jurisdiction of this suit, as it is not therein alsippi, was sued in the County Court of Clai-leged that Christopher Dart, who is declared to horne, by Christopher Dart and William Gardter, who called themselves late merchants and Copartners trading under the style and firm of Dart & Co., and stated the suit to be for the use of Christopher Dart. It is not necessary to state the cause of action, or trace the progress of the suit minutely. Lee appeared to the suit. In December, 1836, his death was suggested. In July, 1837, Ann Lee took out letters of administration upon the estate of Charles S. Lee, under the authority of the Probate Court of Claiborne County. HOWARD 6. U. S., Book 12. be the assignor of the judgment upon which this suit is brought, was either an alien or a citizen of another State than Louisiana, or *could have maintained the suit in this [*46 honorable court either against the appearer or the said Charles S. Lee. 2. Appearer alleges that Christopher Dart and William Gardner, the alleged owners of the claim upon which the judgment was obtained in Mississippi, were citizens of Louisiana, and members of a commercial firm located in New Orleans, and could not have maintained this suit in this honorable court "3. That the said William Gardner, one of the joint owners of said claim, was a citizen of Louisiana, and that the said Dart & Gardner could not have maintained a suit upon said claim in this honorabie court either against the said C. S. Lee or against this appearer. 4. That the said C. Dart, under an assignment and transfer of said claim from the said Gardner, could not have maintained a suit thereon in this honorable court. 5. Appearer further excepts and says, that this honorable court has no jurisdiction over successions in the State of Louisiana, nor over the settlement of said successions and the distributions of the proceeds among the creditors, nor over administrators and others appointed to administer them, nor of the establishment of claims for money against such successions; that the Court of Probate of this State have the sole and exclusive jurisdiction of all these matters; that no property belonging to a succession in the course of administration in the Probate Court, whose jurisdiction has attached over the subject matter, can be taken, levied upon, or sold by process from the courts of the United States; nor can said probate courts be ousted or disseized of their said exclusive jurisdiction once obtained, nor the property withdrawn from their control by any other tribunal. That this has been the well known and settled law of the State for the last twenty years, and that the said Dart & Gardner contracted in New Orleans, in Louisiana, under and in reference to this law, and are bound by it; appearer alleges that this honorable court, for the above reasons, has no jurisdiction in this suit, ratione persona, nor ratione materiæ, but avers that the Court of Probates of the parish of Concordia has sole and exclusive jurisdiction thereof. Wherefore appearer prays that this suit may be dismissed at plaintiff's costs, &c. If all the above exceptions should be overruled, then appearer pleads that the plaintiff has neither alleged nor shown any cause of action against him whatever, nor any indebted ness to the plaintiff by the succession of C. S. Lee in the State of Louisiana. 47*] *If the above exception should be also overruled, then defendant denies generally and specially each and every allegation in plaintiff's petition contained. Wherefore he prays that plaintiff's demand may be rejected with costs, and for general relief in the premises, &c. (Signed) D. S. STACY, "Adm'or estate C. S. Lee." On the 26th of February, 1844, Thrasher filed an amended petition, averring that Christopher Dart, the assignor of the judgment, was, at the time of the assignment, an alien, being a citizen of the republic of Texas, and resident therein, and that Charles S. Lee, at the time of said assignment and of his death, was a citizen of Louisiana. On the 13th of March, 1844, the court over ruled the exceptions, and on the 11th of April following gave the following final judgment: "This cause came on for trial, and the law and the evidence being in favor of the plaintiff, it is ordered, adjudged and decreed, that the defendant, David S. Stacy, as administrator of the estate of Charles S. Lee, be condemned to pay to the plaintiff, for the use of William Sellers, the sum of six thousand nine hundred and eighty eight dollars and five cents, with eight per cent. interest thereon per annum from the first day of December, eighteen hundred and forty, until paid, and costs of suit. Judgment rendered April 11th, 1844. Judgment signed April 18th, 1844. (Signed) "J. MCKINLEY.” From this decree, a writ of error brought the case up to this court. The case was argued by Mr. T. B. Barton for the plaintiff in error, and Mr. Crittenden, Mr. Thrasher, and Mr. Henderson, for the defendant in error. Mr. Barton, for the plaintiff in error: The great and important question which the record presents, and to which this argument will be confined, is that to which the last exception is directed. The petition, with the other proceedings in Louisiana upon the judgment in Mississippi, are not distinguishable from an action of debt, brought under the same circumstances, upon a like judgment, in the courts of those States where the practice is according to the course of the common law. The petition is founded, as the action of debt would be, upon the judg ment. The validity and effect of the judgment must be the same in both kinds of pro- [*48 ceedings. The case involves the question whether a judgment, rendered in one State against an administrator who has taken administration of the assets in that State, and within that jurisdiction, can be made the foundation of an action in another State against a different administrator, whose administration has been taken within the jurisdiction of the latter, of the assets within the latter jurisdiction. There are some special circumstances in this record which arrest our attention in advancing to the discussion of the main point. Cases of this kind must always be open to iemark, and entitled to grave consideration. The judgment rendered against the first administrator, which is made the foundation of a recovery against the administrator out of the assets in another jurisdiction, must be taken to have adjudged that the administrator against whom the judgment was rendered had assets to satisfy the debt. That administrator, in the proceedings against him, must have admitted, by his pleadings, that he had assets: and that will always be the case when he neglects (as was the case in Dart & Co. v. Lee's Administratriæ in Mississipppi) to plead plene administravit; or, if assets have been denied by such plea, that issue must have been found against him. A general judgment, therefore, against an administrator, necessarily includes in it the adjudication of assets in the hands of that administrator to the amount of the judgment. According to the rigor of the common law, the judgment in that form would be absolutely conclusive against the defendant's administrator, and against the plaintiff and all others; and the only ulterior proceedings upon such judgment. if not satisfied upon an execution to be levied de bonis testatoris, would be against that administrator for a derastavit. (2 Lomax on Executors, 391, sec. 8, and 451, sec. 21.) tice oftentimes, in some of the States, little more than a nominal administrator, shall conclude the primary domiciliary administrator, holding the main bulk of the assets, by establishing against him and against those assets the principal fact in the case, the indebtedness of the intestate. so that they can never be extricated from this rigid conclusiveness of the foreign judgment? There is a further remark, that the [*50 petitioner seeks a recovery upon the Mississippi judgment against "a considerable estate, real and personal," left by the intestate in the State of Louisiana; estates of both descriptions, it would seem, are liable as assets in the hands, or Virginia, and perhaps others of the States, has mollified, in some respects, the rigorous conclusion of this common law rule, but with out destroying it. In its most mitigated application to such a recovery, the judgment will be at least taken, until the contrary is shown by that defendant, as a judgment that the administrator had assets for the satisfaction of the recovery. For this reason, as well as for other reasons, it is certain that we shall find no case in the English authorities where a judgment has been recovered against one administrator, in which any recovery has been sought against another administrator, unless in cases of an administrator de bonis non, or unless in cases of special administrations, such as administrator dur-under the control, of the administrator in that ante minore atate, &c. And, for the same reason, State. There is no principle in general jurisit is probable that no such cases can be found prudence, and particularly in the United States, in any of the American authorities, even where better established, than that land can never be 49*] the rules alluded to have been *mitigated. subjected to a foreign jurisdiction. (Story's It will be found extremely difficult within the Confl. of Laws, pages 436, 437, secs. 522, 523.) jurisdiction where administration was granted, To give to the judgments of one State vato conceive any case of that kind. The judg-lidity and effect in the courts of another, is a ment, then, upon which the petitioner founds wise provision under our system of government. his recovery against the administrator in Loui- It cannot, however, be overlooked, that to whatsiana, shows upon its face that assets for its sat-ever extent force is allowed to them out of the isfaction, in the State of Mississippi, were also State which pronounced them, in the jurisdicadjudged. The very judgment, by showing tion of another State, it operates as a restriction that matter, an adjudged liability of a suffi- or compulsion upon this jurisdiction, making it ciency of estate in Mississippi, shows an exon- subordinate to the jurisdiction of a foreign eration of assets elsewhere than in Mississippi, forum. The provision, therefore, which has and that the Louisiana administrator ought not been alluded to should be jealously guarded by to be charged, by a double recovery, for that the courts; and unless its application should be which has been already or can be recovered shown to be clearly reasonable, the application against another representative in Mississippi. should be denied. It has before been intimated, that no authority can be found, certainly not in the English law, probably not in the American law, which can govern the precise case now under consideration. There is also another remark that may be made upon the proceedings in this case---that the decision, if sustained, must lead to alarm ing mischiefs in the administration of assets which an intestate has left in two or more States. It seems, from the amended petition, that C. S. Lee, at the time of his death, was a citizen of Louisiana; that was his domicil, and consequently Ann Lee, in Mississippi, was a foreign administratrix. The bulk of an intes tate's assets will almost always be found in the jurisdiction of his domicil. The proposition which is contended for to sustain this recovery goes to this extent-that if an intestate in one State had died, leaving property of the most inconsiderable value in another State, making it necessary that there should be an administra tion in the latter, a plaintiff, by recovering a judgment against the latter, establishing a debt of the intestate, that judgment, as contended for by the defendant in error, would be conclu sive upon the administrator and the assets, in the State of the domicil, at least so far as it es tablished the indebtedness of the intestate. In vain might the domiciliary administrator attempt, in an action brought against him upon that judgment, to prove that the plaintiff had no shadow of claim against the intestate; he would be repelled, by force of the judgment, from any such defense. Without attempting to disturb any doctrine heretofore established in regard to the conclusiveness of judgments, and the effect of the judgment of a court of one State, when sued upon or offered in evidence in the courts of another State, it is contended that that doctrine has never been extended to a case like the present, and that it would not be reasonable to give it such application. It is a principle incontrovertibly established in the English jurisprudence, in that of Louisiana (Benjamin and Slidell's Digest of Louisiana Laws, page 559, et seq.), and in all the other States, that no one, in general, can be bound by a verdict or judgment, unless he be a party to the suit, or be in privity with the party, or possess the power of making himself a party. For (as has been well said) otherwise he has no power of crossexamining the witnesses, or of adducing evidence in support of his rights. He can have no attaint, nor can he challenge the inquest, or appeal (or have a writ of error on the judgment). In short, he is deprived of the means provided by the law for ascertaining the truth, and consequently it would be repugnant to the first principles of justice that he should be bound by the results of an inquiry to which he was altogether a stranger." (1 Stark. Law Ev., 217, 6th Am. ed.) Is it reasonable, that, in the international law of these States under the Constitution and acts of Congress, such ruinous stringency should be given to the judgment of one State It is not pretended that the administrator in in the courts of another?-that a judgment Louisiana was a party to the proceed- [*51 against the foreign administrator, who is re-ings in Mississippi, or could by any possible garded only as auxiliary or ancillary to the means have made himself a party to them. domiciliary administration, and who is in prac- It is incumbent upon the defendant in error another representative depends upon no peculiar rules springing out of a practice of the Probate Court, in regard to the representatives of deceased persons, but is to be ascertained upon principles of the common law, as applicable to cases generally, of which a variety of illustrations will be found in the books, especially 1 Stark. Law Ev., 217, et seq. Privity between one administrator and another does not depend upon, and cannot be created by, their being each of them the representative of the same intestate, though it be a duty in which they all unite. It has not been so regarded in the En clearly to show, before the jurisdiction in Mississippi shall control that of Louisiana, that the administrator of the latter State was, in the proceedings in which judgment was recovered in the former, in privity with the defendant in that suit. The contrary has been distinctly laid down by Justice Story, in his learned treatise on the Conflict of Laws, sec. 522. That is a direct authority upon the present case. It makes no difference that the judgment in the cases in Rawle, 431, to which he refers, was a judgment rendered in Barbadoes. The matter under consideration involves no discussion, as to the difference between the effect of a judg-glish law, which until the 17th Car. II., did not ment when rendered in a State jurisdiction. and when rendered in a jurisdiction out of the United States. The point decided there was, that there was no privity between one administrator and another administrator of the same intestate, when both administrations have been granted by different jurisdictions entirely separate and independent of each other. The jurisdiction of each State of this Union is sovereign and independent in granting letters of administration, as much so as that of any two foreign States. The grant, when made, invests the administrator under the authority of that State with the proprietorship of the effects of the intestate within that State, but, having no jurisdiction beyond its own limits, it can confer no property upon him out of those limits. Each administrator, when several administrations are granted in several States, is made the owner of a distinct property, wholly unconnected with any other out of the State. The authority under which each derives his title is a separate sovereign power; and it is exclusively by that authority, not by virtue of testamentary appointment of the dead, that they are invested with any interest or control in the respective estates; and it is entirely to the authority from which their rights are alone derived that they are in any manner accountable. In some sense they may severally be said to be a representative of the deceased. There would be no ground for asserting that these representatives in different States consti tute one representative, as several executors under the same will, or administrators under the same jurisdiction, may constitute one executor or administrator, though the assets confided to each may be separated. It is believed that this doctrine, here attempted to be presented, of the relation in which the separate administrators under differen juris dictions stand in these United States, has been universally recognized by the States, except so 52*] far as by statutory law (showing that the original principal was as here stated) the doctrine has been changed or modified. It would seem necessarily so, not only as regards the relation of the administrator, but as regards the rights of the executor as affecting the assets and the representative of the deceased, for he has no lien upon the fund in the hands of the representative as the debtor, but the person of the administrator, who is, in a measure, the officer or bailiff of the court appointing him, in respect of the assets which he has in his hands, is the debtor. (1 Lomax on Executors, 345; Ram. on Ass., 484.) What constitutes privity between one representative of a dead man and ¦ regard the administrator de bonis non in privity with an executor or administrator, to bring scire facias on the judgment which the executor or administrator had obtained. (See authorities, 1 Lom. Ex., 325.) So, if one brings several ejectments against several upon the same title, a verdict against one is not evidence against the rest, because the party against whom the verdict was had might be relieved against it, if it was not good, but the rest could not. (1 Stark. Law Ev., 217); as the title under which all these defendants in ejectment claimed is the same, each of them, of course, must have held in privity to some one person, from whom all their titles were severally derived; nevertheless, that privity in one common title did not unite them in privity to each other. The judgment, therefore, in Mississippi, against Ann Lee, administratrix of the assets of Charles S. Lee in Mississippi, could not bind the appellant, D. S. Stacy, administrator of the assets of C. S. Lee in Louisiana. The rule excluding res inter alios acta as a ground of action, or as a bar in the pleadings, it is hardly necessary to remark, extends with equal stringency to exclude such matter as evidence at the trial. (1 Stark. Law Ev., 217; and 1 Greenl. Ev., sec. 522, et seq.) mean The principle here contended for cannot be evaded by force of the statute of Mississippi, which seems, as is contended for, *to [*53 make the judgment recovered in Mississippi against Ann Lee, administratrix, have the effect of being a judgment recovered against Charles S. Lee, the intestate himself, because that suit was instituted against him in his lifetime. That statute enables the plaintiff to revive the suit pending against the intestate, and empowers the court to render judgment for or against such administrator, in the same manner as if the original party were in existence. (How. & Hutch. Dig., 584.) This statute can nothing more than in the strongest expressions to remove merely the impediment thrown in the way of the proceedings of the plaintiff by abatement. It did not mean, by strict adherence to the same manner as if the original party were in existence, to preclude the administratrix from pleading pleas peculiarly allowed to executors and administrators-such as plene administravit, generally or specially, no assets. and the like; or to preclude the plaintiff from taking a judgment against the administratrix; and if so, the judgment could not be in the same manner as if the original party was in existence. If the Legislature had intended that, it would have adopted a provision like that in the 17th Car. II., c. 8. s. 1, where a party dies between verdict and judgment, directing that the judg ment shall be entered as if both parties were living. (See 1 Lom. Ex., 324, 325.) The judgment rendered in this very case shows that such has not been the interpretation given to that statute, for it is a judgment not against the intestate, but against the administratrix. Whatever may be the interpretation to be put upon the statute, it is sufficient here to say, that the judgment taken was not in accordance with any directions that it should be rendered as if the party were living, but that was waived if the statute gave such power, and the plaintiff has taken a judgment against the administratrix; and taking it in that manner, the plaintiff subjects himself to all the consequences of that form of judgment. In conclusion, the plaintiff in error is not precluded from the grounds of error here attempted to be maintained by force of the 32d section of the Judiciary Act of 1789. That section was only intended to apply to proceedings in actions at common law; not to proceedings by petition, according to the practice of Louisiana. Even if it did, the exception taken in the court below cannot but be regarded as tantamount to a demurrer according to the requisitions of that statute. That clause is a transcript of the provisions of 27th Eliz., c. 5, and 4th Anne, c. 16, for the purpose of curing mere defects of form, and requiring special demurrers, leaving matters of substance unaffected by its provisions, to be taken advantage of by general demurrer, 54*] *without setting down any special cause, or to be taken advantage of by errors in arrest of judgment, or by writ of error. (See Bac. Abr., Pleas and Pleading; Stephens on Pleading, 140.) Mr. Crittenden, Mr. Thrasher, and Mr. Henderson, for the defendant in error, sustained the judgment of the court below upon the same grounds, which are thus explained in the argument of Mr. Henderson: This Mississippi judgment, we say, conclusively established the plaintiffs' demand against the estate of the intestate Lee, not only in Mississippi, but in every State of the Union. We do not say but its ratable priorities and claims, as to order of satisfaction, are to be governed by the local law of the administration. The claim, however, is legally authenticated as against the decedent estate, so as to entitle it to payment and satisfaction, though put to judgment in a different State than that of the administration. (13 Pet., 312.) Notwithstanding all that is said in the books upon original and ancillary administrations in different States, we insist the administrative tribunals of a decedent's effects in no one State can reject the allowance of a creditor's claim from another State, if legally established. The Constitution of the United States gives to the citizens of each State the privileges and immunities of the citizens of the several States. State tribunals, therefore, cannot regard a co-State creditor as a foreign creditor, and so administer the effects of the decedent within a State, to the exclusive use of creditors within that State. And so is it implied in 3 Pick,, 128; and so, undoubtedly, is the requirement of the Constitution of the United States, above quoted. The record of this judgment in Mississippi shows that the action was instituted against Lee in his lifetime, who appeared and pleaded; that before verdict he died, and his widow and administratrix, by the positive requirements of the laws of Mississippi, came in on scire facias, pleaded to, and defended the action. This, in Mississippi, merged the original cause of action, established the debt against the decedent estate, and was and is res adjudicata. The Act of Congress of 26th May, 1790, expressly requires that this judgment shall have full faith and credit given to it in every court within the United States, as it has by law or usage in the courts of the State of Mississippi. (1 Statutes at Large, p. 122.) It undoubtedly has, in that State, the "faith and credit" of establishing or authenticating the debt against the estate of Lee, regardless of whosesoever hands the estate may come to or *be found in. It is not that it merely es- [*55 tablishes the debt against the administratrix, Ann Lee; but against the estate of C. S. Lee. The judgment, thus presented, either by suit, in the courts of Louisiana, or to the administrator, in Louisiana, for allowance or payment, must have the same "faith and credit" accorded to it as in Mississippi. (6 Wheat., 129; 7 Cr., 481; 13 Pet., 312.) Now, this "faith and credit" is not so conceded to a foreign judgment. Hence the case in 2 Rawle, 431, which was a judgment from Barbadoes, sued on in Pennsylvania. All the pleas in that case imply the opinion of the pleader, that, had it been a judgment from another State of the Union, the defense could not have been relied on: nor does the court say otherwise. Another well established rule of decision sustains the point we contend for-namely, that the judgment of a competent State court merges and extinguishes the original cause of action as to all parties and privies whether privies by blood or estate in all other States of the Union. (3 Wash. C. C. R., 17; 1 Pet., 692, 693; 16 Mass., 71.) But a foreign judgment does not so extinguish the cause of action, if again sued on here, as to bar recovery for this cause. Again. Our petition makes no personal demand against the defendant; but, setting forth a claim against the estate of Lee, by authentication of a judgment, duly obtained, in contest with the administratrix in Mississippi, seeks its satisfaction out of Lee's estate in Louisiana, represented by the defendant as administrator. But the spirit of his objection is personal to himself. It is not that he questions but the cause of action has been established in judgment, by a court of competent jurisdiction, as against Lee's estate, so far as represented by his administratrix in Mississippi; but defendant objects, the estate is not thereby liable in Louisiana, till he, defendant, has litigated the same question over again. And for what good? Is there in the Constitution of the United States, and the laws of Congress, any sensible purpose or policy that this question should be twice litigated, in order to conclude the estate of Lee, as represented by this administrator, any more than if this judgment had been rendered against Lee, in his lifetime? Suppose this judgment in Mississippi had been rendered in the United States Circuit Court, and then sued on as now in the United States Circuit Court of Louisiana; could this |