Facts
- T. Lawrason Riggs, a U.S. citizen and District of Columbia resident, died intestate in Washington, D.C. in 1888, seized in fee of valuable D.C. real estate.
- Riggs left surviving a brother and three sisters; he left no descendants except the minor children of a deceased sister, Kate S. Riggs.
- Kate S. Riggs married Louis de Geofroy, a French citizen, in 1872; she later died in 1881.
- The children of that marriage (the complainants) were minors residing with their father in France; one was born in Peking while the father served as French minister to China, and the other was born in France.
- The complainants asserted they were French citizens and, as the only descendants of a deceased sibling, were heirs entitled to an interest in Riggs’s D.C. land.
- They filed an equity bill in the Supreme Court of the District of Columbia seeking determination of heirship and a sale with division of proceeds because partition in kind would cause loss and injury.
- The defendants (Riggs’s surviving siblings and related parties) demurred, contending the complainants, as nonresident aliens, lacked capacity to inherit D.C. real property.
- The trial court sustained the demurrer and dismissed the bill; the complainants appealed.
Issues
- Whether Article 7 of the 1853 Consular Convention between the United States and France permits French citizens residing abroad to take by descent real property located in the District of Columbia.
- Whether the federal treaty power constitutionally extends to regulating foreign citizens’ rights to own, transmit, and inherit property within U.S. jurisdiction.
- Whether the treaty phrase “the States of the Union” includes the District of Columbia for purposes of inheritance rights.
- If no treaty applied, whether common-law or locally applicable law in the District of Columbia would bar alien inheritance.
Decision
- The Supreme Court reversed the decree sustaining the demurrer and dismissing the bill, and remanded with directions to overrule the demurrer and proceed further.
- The Court held that a citizen of France can take land in the District of Columbia by descent from a U.S. citizen.
- The Court held that the treaty power extends to stipulations protecting foreign citizens’ property and prescribing how it may be transferred, devised, or inherited.
- The Court held that, as a political community, the District of Columbia falls within “the States of the Union” as used in Article 7 of the 1853 Convention, so the treaty applies to D.C. land.
- The Court recognized that, absent the treaty, the common-law disability of aliens (“no inheritable blood”) would have barred the complainants’ inheritance.
- The Court treated the complainants as French citizens, including the child born in Peking, based on French law of nationality and the public-law rule for children of accredited ministers.
Legal Principles
- The federal treaty power reaches all proper subjects of negotiation with foreign nations, including rules governing foreign citizens’ ownership of property and the transfer, devise, and inheritance of that property within U.S. jurisdiction.
- A self-executing treaty made under U.S. authority operates as domestic law and prevails over conflicting common-law or local restrictions within its scope.
- Treaty terms are construed in context and in light of their purpose; a treaty’s geographic terminology may be read functionally to avoid frustrating reciprocal rights the treaty was meant to secure.
- Under the common law, aliens generally could not inherit land by descent, but that disability can be displaced by valid treaty stipulation.
Conclusion
The Supreme Court held that Article 7 of the 1853 U.S.–France Consular Convention was operative federal law allowing French citizens to inherit real property in the District of Columbia from a U.S. citizen, that such inheritance provisions fall within the treaty power, and that the treaty’s reference to “the States of the Union” includes the District of Columbia, requiring reversal of the dismissal and further proceedings on the heirs’ claims.