This is a petition for a rehearing of an appeal from a decree of the circuit court of the United States for the Southern district of New York, upon a bill filed against the executor of a guardian by the administratrix of his ward. Gazaway B. Lamar was appointed in 1855, by a surrogate's court in New York, guardian of the person and property of Martha M. Sims. The bill alleged that at the time of the appointment the ward resided in New York. The answer alleged that at that time she was temporarily residing there, and was then, as well as in 1861, a citizen of Alabama. The hearing of the merits of the case was had in the circuit court upon the pleadings, and upon certain facts stated by the defendant and admitted by the plaintiff, which, so far as they affected the domicile of the ward, were as follows: William W. Sims, the ward's father, died at Savannah, in the state of Georgia, in 1850, leaving two infant daughters and a widow who in 1853 married a citizen of New York, and thenceforth resided with him in that state until 1856, when they removed to Connecticut, and resided there until her death in 1859. The two infants lived with their mother and step-father in New York (where Lamar was appointed in 1855 guardian of both infants) and in Connecticut from her second marriage until her death, and then went to Georgia, and thenceforth resided with their father's mother, and her daughter and only living child, their aunt, at first in Georgia and afterwards in Alabama.
Upon those facts, this court assumed the domicile of William W. Sims to have been in Georgia, and held that the domicile of his children continued to be in that state throughout their residence with their mother and her second husband in New York and Connecticut, and until their return to Georgia upon the death of their mother in 1859, and was thereafter in Georgia or Alabama; that whether the guardian's domicile was in georgia or in New York, he should not, in accounting for his investments, be held to a narrower range of securities than was allowed by the law of the ward's domicile; and that many of his investments were justified by the law of Georgia or of Alabama; and therefore reversed the decree of the circuit court, which had held him to account according to the law of New York for the manner in which he had invested the property. 112 U.S. 452; S.C.. ante, 221.
The questions so passed upon, though hardly touched by either counsel at the first argument, arose upon the facts admitted, were vital to the determination of the rights of the parties, and could not be overlooked by this court. The importance and comparative novelty of some of the questions induced the court to nvite the submission of a full brief in support of the petition for a rehearing. But, upon careful consideration of the petition and brief, the court has seen no ground for changing its opinion, and has not thought it necessary to add anything, beyond what has been suggested by examination of the authorities cited for the petitioner.
In Pritchard v. Norton, 106 U.S. 124, S.C.. 1 SUP. CT. REP. 102, the point decided was that the validity and effect of a bond, executed in New York, to indemnify the obligee therein against his liability upon an appeal-bond executed by him in a suit in Louisiana, was to be governed by the law of Louisiana. The decision was based upon the fundamental rule, or, in the words of Chief Justice MARSHALL, the 'principle of universal law'-'that in every forum a contract is governed by the law with a view to which it was made.' Wayman v. Southard, 10 Wheat. 1, 48. And reference was made to two recent English cases of high authority, in which, by force of that rule, the effect of a contract of affreightment, and of a bottomry bond, given by the master, was held to be governed, not by the law of the place where the contract was made, nor by that of the place where it was to be performed, nor yet by the law of the place in which the suit was brought, but by the law of the country to which the ship belonged. Lloyd v. Guibert, 6 Best & S. 100; S.C.. L. R. 1 Q. B. 115; The Gaetano & Maria, L. R. 7 Prob. Div. 137.