128 Ga. 115 | Ga. | 1907
(After stating the facts). The court of ordinary is a court of general jurisdiction, and unless want of jurisdiction appears on the face of the record, its judgment can not be collaterally attacked. Jones v. Smith, 120 Ga. 642. But where the want of jurisdiction appears on the face of the record, its judgment, like that of any other court of general jurisdiction, is void, and subject to attack at any time-by any one whose rights are sought to be affected thereby. Fussell v. Dennard, 118 Ga. 270. The contention of the plaintiff in error is that the application for administration, in each case, shows affirmatively upon its face that the applicant had no right to apply for administration, and consequently that the court of ordinary was without jurisdiction to grant administration upon the application of one unauthorized by law to apply for the same. In Towner v. Griffin, 115 Ga. 965, it was held that an application for letters of administration, which fails to allege that the applicant is an heir at law of decedent, .or a creditor of the estate, or any other reason which under the law would entitle him to the administration, should be dismissed upon motion made upon that ground by caveators appearing at the hearing who are heirs at law of decedent. The conclusion sought to be deduced from the principle there decided is that only those persons referred to have any right to procure an administration on the estate of a decedent, and that where it affirmatively appears
. But the plaintiff in error insists that the recital in each of the applications, that the applicant is “one of the next of kin of the deceased,” means that she was such at the time of the application, .and not at the time of the decedent’s death, and that this inference is aided by the fact that in 'one instance sixty-eight years intervened between the death of the decedent and the application for administration, as affirmatively disclosed therein. To this we can not agree. The representation of the applicant that she was one of the next of kin of the deceased does not exclude the inference that she was one of his next of kin at the time of his death. The lapse of sixty-eight years between the death of the intestate, and the application for administration on his estate is not sufficiently long for the court to hold, as a matter of law, that it was impossible for the applicant to be in life when the intestate died. We have only to look about, to discover acquaintances who have reached thé age of three score and ten. The pleadings do not show lack of jurisdiction in the court; and every fact necessary to make the judgment valid and binding upon the parties thereto will be presumed in its favor. Stuckey v. Watkins, 112 Ga. 268. We there
Affirmed.