POLYDORE V. PRINCE.

An interesting case that discusses domicile and its effects. It is from 1837, so the information in the case pretty much invalidates the 14th amendment did it crew, as well as the BC/SSN sold us into slavery theorists.

POLYDORE V. PRINCE. [1 Ware (402) 411.]

The general doctrine of foreign jurists seems to be, that the state of the person, that is, his legal capacity to do, or not to do, certain acts is to be determined by the law of his domicil, so that if he has by that law, the free administration of his goods, or the right to maintain an action in a court of justice there, he has the same capacity everywhere; and if that capacity is denied to him by the law of his domicil, it is denied everywhere; that the laws determining the civil qualities of the person, called by the foreign jurists personal statutes, follow the person wherever he goes, as the shadow follows the body, and adhere to him like the color of the skin which is impressed by the climate.

Personal statutes are those which relate primarily to the person, and determine the civil privileges and disabilities, the legal capacity or incapacity of the individual, and do not affect his goods, but as they are accessory to the person. Such are those which relate to birth, legitimacy, freedom, majority or minority, capacity to enter into contracts, to make a will, to be a party to an action in a court of justice, with others of the like kind. Repertoire de Jurisprudence, mot “Statut.” According to this principle, a person who is a major or a minor, a slave or a freeman, has, or has not a capacity to appear as a party to an action in a court of justice, stare in judicio, in his own country, has the same capacities and disabilities wherever he may be.

The Code Napoleon has erected what seems to be the prevailing doctrine among the continental civilians into a positive law. “The laws concerning the state or capacity of persons govern Frenchmen, even when residing in a foreign country.” Code Civile, art. 3. If this general principle is to be received without qualification, it would seem to decide the present case at once, for it is admitted that in Guadaloupe where the libellant has his domicil, he can maintain no action in a court of justice. But though the principle is stated in these broad and general terms, yet when it is brought to a practical application in its various modifications, in the actual business of life, it is found to be qualified by so many exceptions and limitations, that the principle itself is stripped of a great part of its imposing authority. No nation, it is believed, ever gave it effect in its practical jurisprudence, in its whole extent.

Among these personal statutes, for which this ubiquity is claimed, are those which formerly over the whole of Europe, and still over a 952 large part of it, divide the people into different castes, as nobles and plebeians, clergy and laity. The favored classes were entitled to many personal privileges and immunities particularly beneficial and honorable to themselves.

It cannot be supposed that these immunities would be allowed in a country which admitted no such distinctions in its domestic policy. If a bill in equity were filed in one of our courts against an English nobleman temporarily resident here, would he be allowed to put in an answer upon his honor, and not under oath, because he was entitled to that personal privilege in the forum of his domicil? I apprehend not. In like manner the disqualification and incapacities, by which persons may be affected by the municipal institutions of their own country, will not be recognized against them in countries by whose laws no such disqualifications are acknowledged.

In England a person who has incurred the penalties of a premunire, or has suffered the process of outlawry against him, can maintain no action for the recovery of a debt, or the redress of a personal wrong. But would it be contended that because he could not maintain an action in the forum of his domicil he could have no remedy on a contract entered into, or a tort done to him within our jurisdiction? The reasons upon which an action is denied him in the forum of his domicil are peculiar to that country, and have no application within another jurisdiction. The incapacity is created for causes that relate entirely to the domestic and internal polity of that country. As soon as he has passed beyond its territorial limits, the reason of his incapacity ceases to operate, and in justice the incapacity should cease also.

It follows that the peculiar personal status, as to his capacities or incapacities, which an individual derives from the law of his domicil, and which are imparted only by that law, is suspended when he gets beyond the sphere in which that law is in force. And when he passes into another jurisdiction his personal status becomes immediately affected by a new law, and he has those personal capacities only which the local law allows.

The civil capacities and incapacities with which he is affected by the law of his domicil, cannot avail either for his benefit or to his prejudice, any further than as they are coincident with those recognized by the local law, or as that community may, on principles of national comity, choose to adopt the foreign law. Though the civilians, as has been observed, generally, hold that the law of the domicil should govern as to the personal status, it is by no means true that they are universally agreed. Voet, one of the most eminent, of whom it has been said that by his clearness and logic he merits the title of the geometer of jurisprudence (Merl. Quest de Droit Confession, § 2, note 1), after stating that such is the opinion of the majority, “plurium opinio,” gives his own opinion in decisive terms, that personal statutes, as well as those relating to things, are limited in their operation to the country by which they are established; and he supports his opinion by the authority of the Roman law, as well as by that plain and obvious axiom of the jus gentium, that the legislative power of every government is confined to its own territorial limits. Ad Pand. lib. 1, tit. 4, pt. 2, notes 5, 7, 8. Gail, who has been styled the Papinian of Germany, maintains the same opinion in terms equally positive. Pract. Obs. lib. 8, Obs. 122, note 11

“The entire change of the legal character of individuals, produced by a change of local situation, is far from being a novelty in the law. A residence in a new country introduces a change of legal condition, which imposes rights and obligations totally inconsistent with the former rights and obligations of the same persons. Persons bound by particular contracts which restrain their liberty, debtors, apprentices, and others, lose their character and condition for the time, when they reside in another country, and are entitled as persons totally free, though they return to their original servitude and obligations upon coming back to the country they 955 had quitted.”




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