55 Ark. 442 | Ark. | 1892
This is a petition to this court for a writ of certiorari presented by McLaughlin to quash a judgment against him, rendered by the Woodruff circuit court. Mc-Crory was the judgment plaintiff. He filed his complaint against McLaughlin, alleging that the latter had obtained from him through fraud a deed to lands lying in Woodruff county, of which he, McCrory, was the owner.
The conclusion announced in the syllabus is correct only where there is an absence of legislation conferring power -upon the courts where the lands lie to exercise jurisdiction upon citation by publication, as in the nature of a proceeding in rent. Anciently, courts of equity exercised jurisdiction exclusively over the person of the defendant, refusing to interfere with or act upon the corpus of his estate. Pickett v. Ferguson, 45 Ark., 212. It is not probable that any such court is now so confined in its jurisdiction. If, however, the court which enters the decree in a given case is authorized to act therein in personam only, it acquires no jurisdiction by publication to grant relief. That is well .settled, and that is the full extent to which it can be said the authority of the decision goes in Hart v. Sansom.
Judge Brewer reviews the cases upon this subject in Arndt v. Griggs, 134 U. S., 316, and announces for the court that the decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States coincide with the decisions of the various State courts in maintaining that a State possesses the power “to provide for the adjudication of titles to real estate within its limits as against non-residents who are brought into court only by publication,” even though a court of equity where the defendant is found might be competent to force him to execute a release of his claim of title. That is the settled law. If it be conceded then that a suit to set aside a deed* upon the ground that it was obtained by fraud is one that a court of equity could entertain by acting upon the person of the party who committed the fraud without regard to the situs ■of the land, it is only necessary to ascertain ' whether the Woodruff circuit court has been empowered to divest title by force of its decree upon citation by publication.
So far then from being confined to acting in personam, the courts of this State are empowered to annul a deed and establish title to lands within their jurisdiction by mere force of their decrees. To that extent their action is in rem.
Jones, McDowell & Co. v. Fletcher, 42 Ark., 422, 446-7.
As the court was empowered to cancel a deed obtained by fraud by acting upon the land, and as the statute authorizes the prosecution of an action for that purpose against a non-resident by publication, nothing is wanting to sustain the decree in question. The petition must therefore be disimissed.
It is so ordered.