Hunt v. Potter

Citations

• 58 Miss. 96

Syllabus

<p>1. Chancery. Jurisdiction. Unliquidated demand against an estate. Sect. 976, Code 1871.</p> <p>Under sect. 976 of the Code of 1871, the Chancery Court in which an estate was being administered had jurisdiction, upon a bill filed for that purpose, to adjudicate the validity and amount of any demand arising ex contractu against such estate, and to decree the payment thereof out of the estate. But it was optional with the creditor to present his demand in the Chancery Court in the first instance, or to obtain judgment in a court of common law first, and then file it for allowance in the Chancery Court. Whether a demand arising ex delicto was within the jurisdiction conferred by sect. 976 is not decided.</p> <p>2. Jurisdiction of Courts. Legislative power. Rule of construction.</p> <p>Any grant of power to the several courts of this State by the Legislature is constitutional if it come within the rule that the power granted, though it may never have been exercised by the court to which the grant is made, and has been uniformly a part of the jurisdiction of another court, pertains to some matter of jurisdiction conferred by the Constitution on the court which is the grantee of the power (as in case of the Chancery Court, to matters “of equity, or matters of testament and administration,” etc.), and is auxiliary and appropriate to the complete exercise of the acknowledged jurisdiction of the court as conferred by the Constitution.</p>