Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 1.djvu/659

LAVIN ». EMIGEAKT INDUSTRIAL SAVINGS BANK. 651 �present case, this court must follow the decision of the court of appeals in the same way in which any other court in the state of New York must do so, and the question of the pro- priety of the decision is not open. If that court should see Ht to re-open the question and reverse its decision, the federal courts will bebound toacceptand to follow its newly deolared views of the construction of the statute. The fact that the court were divided shows that the point was doubtful before it was decided, but after it was decided by a majority of voices the decision became the law of the state for ail other courts. In the subsequent decision the court of appeals ex- plained their former decision, and distinguished the case before them from it; but, although evidently pressed to recon- sider the question before decided, they say "that decision was concurred in by a majority of the court, and we do not f eel justified in reviewing it upon the merits. " �That the point decided — the extent of the jurisdiction of the surrogate — is a matter of construction of a state statute, on which the courts of the United States are bound by law to follow the state court, does not admit of doubt. Such a decision is as clearly within the thirty-fourth section of the judiciary act as any decision can be, and it is equally clear that the point decided was that the statute of New York gave the surrogate power to issue letters et administration in two cases : First, when the alleged decedent is in fact dead ; and, second, when the surrogate judicially determines that he is dead ; and also that the meaning of the statute is that such determination of the surrogate is conclusive in favor of an innocent party who bas, on the faith of the letters so issued, dealt with the administrator, and against the supposed dece- dent, though he was, in fact, alive. �But while this court must follow and adopt this same con- struction of the statutes of New York, the question whether, by these statutes and the proceedings taken under them, the plaintiff has been "deprived of his property without process of law" is one on which the decision of the state court is not controlling, and is entitled only to so much weight and au- thority as the reasoning of the court shall give to their opin- ��� �