delivered the opinion of the court:
On March 24,1894, Hugh A. White, a brother of Louisa Spaulding, died, leaving a last will and testament, by which he devised real and personal property to Catherine M. White, his widow. That will was probated March 29, 1894. At the March term, 1897, of the circuit court of Cоok county, Louisa Spaulding, alleging that she was the heir of Hugh A. White, filed in the circuit court of Cook county a bill to set aside the will on the ground of mental inсapacity on the part of the testator. A demurrer was interposed on the ground that the bill was filed more than two years after the probate of the will, and the court had no jurisdiction to entertain the same. The cоntention of the plaintiff in error was that the bill was filed within three years after the time the will was probated, which was the time fixed by the statute when the will was so admitted to probate.
By section 7 of “An act in regard to wills,” approved March 20,1872, it was provided that when any will, testament or codicil shall be exhibitеd in the county court for probate, it shall be the duty of the court to receive the probate of the same without delay and grant letters, etc., and make settlement of the estate, “provided, however, that if any person interested shall, within three years after the probate of any such will, testament or codicil in the county court, as aforesaid, apрear, and by his or her bill in chancery contest the validity of the same, an issuе at law shall be made up whether the writing produced be the will of the testator or testatrix or not.” By an amendment made in 1895 the time within which any person interested might appear and by his or her bill in chancery contest the validity of the will was reduced from three to two years. The will herein having' been probated on the 29th of March, 1894, and the bill having been filed in March, 1897, the question is whethеr the amendatory act of 1895 applies.
There is a material distinctiоn between a statute conferring jurisdiction and fixing a time within which it may be exercised, and a statute of limitations. The seventh section, as it stood beforе this amendment, conferred jurisdiction on a court of chancery to еntertain a bill to contest a will. The act as it stood prior to the amendment gave no vested right to any one interested, who desired to contеst a will, to have the full term so fixed within which a court should entertain jurisdiction. By the gеneral jurisdiction of courts of equity a bill will not lie to set aside a will or its prоbate independently of statutes enacted conferring such jurisdiction. The power to entertain a bill for that purpose is derived exclusively from the statute, and the jurisdiction can be exercised only in the manner and under the limitations prescribed by the statute. The time within which such bill may be filed under the statute by any person interested is not a limitation law. (Luther v. Luther,
But even if this amendatory act could be rеgarded as purely a limitation act, it could not avail the plaintiff in error in this contention. The will having been probated March 29, 1894, and the act amending section 7 of the Statute of Wills being approved April 11, 1895, and in effect July 1, 1895, the plaintiff in error had the time from July 1,1895, to March 29, 1896,—a period of about nine months,—within which to file her bill. Under any circumstances that would, be reg'arded as a reasonable time within which such bill should be filed. Where a statute of limitations limiting the time within which an act may be done is modified by changing the time, if such change still gives а reasonable time for the performance of the act, taking away no vested right, it is a valid law. Ryhiner v. Frank,
The court had no jurisdiction to entertain this bill, and it was not error to sustain the demurrer and dismiss the bill for Avant of equity. The judgment of the circuit court of Cook county is affirmed.
Judgment affirmed,.