Cunnius v. Reading School District

Citations

• 21 Pa. Super. 340
• 1902 Pa. Super. LEXIS 356

Syllabus

<p>Constitutional law — Constitution of the United States — Fourteenth amendment — Estates of persons supposed to be dead — Act of June 24, 1885, P. L. 155.</p> <p>The act of June 24, 1885, in so far as it authorizes the distribution of the estate of a living citizen of the United States domiciled in a sister state violates the fourteenth amendment of the constitution of the United States and is invalid. The vice of the statute is not in the form of the decree which the court is authorized to enter, but in divesting an owner of his property by a proceeding to which he is not a party, and of which he has had no notice.</p> <p>A state has jurisdiction over persons and property within its boundaries, and may make a law, the purpose of which is the collection of abandoned estates, with proper provisions for the preservation of the property, or the proceeds thereof for the owner, but it has no power to divest the title of a living but absent owner, and give it to others.</p>