Pelham v. Murray

Citations

• 64 Tex. 477

Syllabus

<p>1. Jurisdiction — Administration — Probate matters. — The constitution of the state in force in 1873, which conferred on district courts original and exclusive jurisdiction for the probate of wills, among other enumerated powers, expressly gave that to transact all business appertaining to the estates of deceased persons, and to settle, partition and distribute the same. In the exercise of such powers the district courts were courts of general jurisdiction.</p> <p>2. Statutes construed — Estates op decedents.— Though the statute in force in 1872 provided that property reserved from forced sale by the constitution and laws of the state, or its value if there be none such, should form no part of the estate of a deceased person when a constituent of the family survived (Pasch. Dig., 5487), yet this was so only in the sense that such property constituted no part of the estate subject to the payment of debts. In some other respects it stood in the same relation to the estate as did other property.</p> <p>S. Jurisdiction.— If the district court sitting in probate under the constitution of 1869, and the statutes in force, in determining what property of an estate was exempt from the payment of debts of the deceased, and to whom it was exempt, decreed, after jurisdiction over the estate had properly attached, that land not in fact the exclusive property of the deceased was exempt from the payment of debts, and vested title thereto formally by decree in the surviving widow, that judgment was not void, but, while unreversed, vested title as to the heirs, and is not subject to collateral attack,</p> <p>4. Same — Jurisdiction.— In such case the court had power, derived from the constitution, to settle the estate, which involved the power to adjust by decree the rights of persons claiming as creditors or heirs, and to enforce such decree; and this power extended to the entire estate, whether exempt from forced sale or not.</p> <p>5. Jurisdiction — Probate matters.— From the s