Hohein's Estate

Citations

• 265 Pa. 14
• 108 A. 173
• 1919 Pa. LEXIS 487

Syllabus

<p>Wills — Probate—Issue—Jurisdiction of orphans’ court* — Jurisdiction of common pleas.</p> <p>1. Where on an issue to determine the validity of a will, a Jury in the common pleas finds a verdict against the will, and the proceedings with the will are certified back to the orphans’ court, and thereafter the judgment is opened in the common pleas, and another trial is had without the will having been brought back from the orphans’ court and produced at the trial, and a verdict is rendered in favor of the will, but the proceedings are not returned to the orphans’ court, the latter court has no jurisdiction thereafter to enter an order on the common pleas requiring that the disputed instrument should be returned to the orphans’ court (from which it had not been taken) with a certificate that judgment had been entered in the common pleas against the validity of the document.</p> <p>2. As between the common pleas and the orphans’ court, neither is superior to the other, but both of like rank and grade, and each distinct and separate with respect to jurisdiction.</p> <p>3. The power exists to compel compliance by a judicial tribunal with a statutory duty; but that power is never conferred upon a tribunal of equal rank and grade with that complained against as being in default.</p>