Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 9.djvu/246

HOLMES V, OEEGON & CALIFORNIA B. 00. 231 �been tlioroughly and ably argued and reargued, and I have given it that care- ful consideration which the importance of the case, and of the principle involved, deserve. �Whether the libellant is administrator depends upon the question whether the appointment of Davis, who was appointed by the oounty court of Multnomah county, and whose appointment, if legal, -was still in force, was valid; and if not, then whether the intestate was in fact an inhabitant .of Jackson county "at or immediately before his death." As to the first point, the appointment of an administrator of an estate, while there is alre'My a legal adminis- trator, is void. The title to all the estate having already vested in the existing administrator for the purposes of administration, there is no estate in existence which can vest in the second appointee by virtue of his appointment. There is no subject-matter upon which he can act. Griffith v. Frazier, 8 Cranch, 9 ; Kane v. Paul, 14 Pet. 33 ; Haynes v. Meeks, 20 Cal. 288 ; Hamilton's Estate, 34 Cal. 464. �Was Davis, then, administrator at the time of libellant's appoint- ment ? The only ground of iuvalidity in the appointment of Davis, alleged and relied on by libellant, is that Perkins, "at or immediately before his death," was not in fact an inhabitant of Multnomah county, and the county court of that county had no jurisdiction to make the appointment, and it is insisted that the appointmeot, for that reason, is absolutely void. �The first point to be considered, then, is, is the question of inhab- itancy open to examination on a collateral attack? Section 1, art. 7, of the constitution of Oregon, so far as it relates to county courts, is in the following language : "The judicial power of the court shall be vested in a supreme court, circuit court, and county courts, which shall be courts of record, having general jurisdiction, to be defined, limited, and regulated by law in accordance with this constitution." Gen. Laws Or. p. 87. Thus the people of Oregon, in their fundamental law, have relieved the county courts of the badge of inferiority, in the technical sense of that term, and made them courts of record, — supe- rior courts, — and so far as the sanctity of their determinations, and the faith and credit due to their records are concerned, plaeed them upon a plane of equal dignity with the circuit and supreme courts. The general jurisdiction is conferred, and the character of the court fixed in the same section and in the same language as that which fixes the stattis of the other courts. The same effect muet, therefore, be given to their determinations upon collateral attack, and the same inviolability attributed to their records as to the records of the circuit ��� �