179 N.E. 360 | Ohio | 1931
This review involves the interpretation of that provision of the Constitution *456 conferring the right to appeal to the Court of Appeals. The original suit praying construction was filed under favor of Section 10857, General Code, which provides: "An executor, administrator, guardian, or other trustee, may maintain an action in the court of common pleas against the creditors, legatees, distributees, or other parties, asking the direction or judgment of the court in any matter respecting the trust, estate, or property to be administered, and the rights of the parties in interest, in the manner, and as fully, as formerly was entertained in courts of equity."
Whatever doubt may exist as to the breadth of that section in conferring power upon an administrator, or in conferring jurisdiction upon the court of common pleas, is not considered in this case.
It was evidently the intention of the Legislature by that section to invest the court of common pleas with jurisdiction to enter declaratory judgments and to relieve the administrator from the responsibility which formerly attached on being required to use his own judgment, or that of his counsel, and to have his acts later questioned on exceptions to his final account.
There are a multitude of questions which ordinarily trouble administrators in the administration of estates other than construction of wills, concerning which the court may not authoritatively give direction, but it has nevertheless been the uniform practice, upon application, for courts of common pleas to construe the language of wills, and this entirely without regard to whether they involve trusts.
This statute was first enacted April 17, 1857 (54 Ohio Laws, 202, 204), and although it has been *457 amended several times there has been no material change since its first enactment. Prior to 1857 courts of common pleas, whether upon the law or the equity side, could not have given directions or judgments in the administration of estates, and we shall not inquire in this proceeding whether under that section the common pleas court could give direction or judgment in matters other than those involving trust relations.
The constitutional provision relating to appeals from the court of common pleas to the Court of Appeals need not be repeated, because it is conceded that such appeals can only be taken in chancery cases. The sole inquiry, therefore, is whether the action in the court of common pleas in the instant case was a chancery case.
Though the changed jurisdiction of the Court of Appeals to hear cases on appeal has been in effect nineteen years, attorneys continue to misconceive the basis of the right. InCincinnati Polyclinic v. Balch,
Equity is a separate system of jurisprudence whose principles are universal among jurisdictions which administer the common law. It is as old and its principles are as fixed and permanent as those of the common law itself. It follows that the basis of American equity jurisprudence must be found in the equity jurisdiction of the high court of chancery in England. It finds its basis and its concept in English equity jurisprudence, yet it finds no limitations anywhere. It is progressive and expands and develops with the progressive changes of modern civilization; yet, as was declared in Wagner v. Armstrong,supra, "the term in our new Constitution cannot be regarded as affected by the provisions of *459 statutes relating to appeals nor by the introduction bodily of equitable remedies into our statutes."
Following that declaration, it must be said that Section 10857, General Code, does not create new, equitable remedies. That statute provides a legal remedy for construction of wills involving only legal estates. It must be held that on the equity side of the court of common pleas that section only authorizes the direction and judgment of the court in matters where trust estates are involved, and that as to all other matters they are heard on the law side of the court.
If the legislature should be declared to have the right to provide an equitable remedy, and make it the basis of appeal as a chancery case it would follow that it would be in the power of the legislature to materially change the jurisdiction of the Court of Appeals.
In the case of Gearhart v. Richardson,
Our attention has been called in argument to Collins v.Collins,
Another source of authority on this subject is the equity jurisprudence as administered by the High Court of Chancery in England. That court did interpret wills where trust estates were involved, and it refused to interpret wills involving purely legal estates. We are unable to find a single case where the high court of chancery ever entertained a suit brought solely for the purpose of interpreting the provisions of a will, without any further relief. It was careful to draw the distinction, in the exercise of its jurisdiction, between those wills involving trusts and those which involved purely legal estates.
It may therefore safely be said that the cases decided by the High Court of Chancery are authority for the proposition that where a will devises and bequeaths estates purely legal in character, and involving no trust relations, it does not present a chancery case. We therefore find no error in the judgment of the Court of Appeals, and its judgment must be affirmed.
Judgment affirmed.
JONES, MATTHIAS, DAY, ALLEN, KINKADE and ROBINSON, JJ., concur. *461