126 S.E. 579 | W. Va. | 1925
This cause comes here on certificate. One of the defendants, John C. Summers, demurred to the plaintiff's bill assigning as grounds of demurrer the fact that the circuit court of McDowell county had no jurisdiction herein, but that the jurisdiction to distribute the estate of Joseph A. Huddleston, deceased, involved herein, was in the county court of McDowell county and not in said circuit court. The demurrer was overruled.
A question of pleading here presents itself. Chapter 125, Section 16, Code, provides that where the declaration or bill shows on its face proper matter for jurisdiction, no exception for want of jurisdiction shall be allowed unless it be taken by plea in abatement. This court has so held in Bank v. Gettinger,
We now reach the vital question at issue in this suit. The bill on its face shows that it is brought for the sole purpose of administering the estate of J. A. Huddleston, deceased, and making distribution thereof, and the county court of McDowell county is sought to be enjoined from taking and exercising further jurisdiction in the administration of said estate. On the face of the bill has the circuit court jurisdiction? This is the sole question to be determined. Article
Pomeroy's Eq. Jur. (4th ed.), Section 281, states the rule: "The decisions all admit that if the statute contains words negativing or expressly taking away the previous equitable jurisdiction, or even if, upon a fair and reasonable interpretation, the whole scope of the statute shows, by necessary intendment, a clear legislative intention to abrogate such jurisdiction, then the former jurisdiction of equity is thereby ended." In a discussion of the jurisdiction of courts in the administration of estates, this learned author, continuing further, says: "In many states the doctrines and rules of the law regulating the administration of decedent's estate, whether testate or intestate, have been reduced to a statutory and often to a minutely codified form. The provisions of these statutes are to a large extent the principles and doctrines concerning the subject matter which have been settled by the English and American courts of equity through a long course of decision. * * * The general effect produced by this legislative system may be briefly stated in one proposition. In a great majority of the states the original equitable jurisdiction over administrations is in all ordinary cases — that is, in all cases without any special circumstances, such as fraud, or without any equitable feature, such as a trust — either expressly or practically abrogated. The courts of equity, in the absence of such special circumstances or distinctively equitable feature, either do not possess or will not exercise the jurisdiction, but leave the whole matter of administrations to the special probate tribunals."
However, the whole matter seems to be concluded so far as this court is concerned in Stone v. Simmons,
By reason of the constitutional provisions conferring probate jurisdiction upon the county courts, and because of the statutes enacted in pursuance thereto, it has become the settled policy of the law of this state that, except where the circuit court is given jurisdiction by the statute as in Chapter 86, Section 7, and Chapter 87, Section 32, Code, and in special cases based upon some distinctive and independent ground of equitable cognizance, which is of material aid to a pending administration or which removes an impediment from the final settlement of the estate, as, for example, the construction of a will, fraud, waste and the like; all such matters shall, in the first instance, be adjudicated in the county court; and this appears to be the settled policy in nearly all the states of the Union. 1 Pom. Eq. Juris. (4th ed.), Sections 346-352.
The bill under consideration does not state any ground for equitable relief that would bring it within the rule herein announced. The demurrer to the bill should have been sustained. We reverse the ruling of the circuit court, and so certify.
Ruling reversed.