The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1916-03-22
.SAXTON CHIL LDREN
 ARE LEGAL HEIRS
Supreme Court Declines to Disturb a California
 Statute.

l In it's recent session, the supreme court of errors handed down a decis- 1 ion in a Litchfeld county case in which is embodied more than enough plot for modern novel. The court divided, the opinion by Chief Justice i Prentice being concurred in by Jus tlces Thayer and Beach while Justice Roraback and Wheeler dissented. In brief, it finds that children, legitimate under the law of the state of Califor- mia where they were born, cannot be declared fllegitimate in Connecticut, although they would have been had they been born in this state under the circumstances attending their birth in Canifornia~
 Though the children have all at tained their majority, they knew noth- ing of the point involved until the suit was brought while their bother supposed she was legally married un- til the suit was brought nor would she have ever known to the contrary had a certain woman in Winsted made 3 will
 The ease appears in the record as Florence Moore and others appeal from probate and the facts connect ed with it are in brief follows: In 1914, one, Ruth Richards died in the town of Winchester leaving personal property amounting to about S30, ,O0O but leaving no will, no children, no husband, brothers, sisters nor parents Three sisters predeceased her, each leaving 9 child or children, and these arc the appellants in the case. She also had a brother, Charles Platt Sax. ton, who died in 1899, and it was his
 marital experiences which the court had to consider for he left three living children! He married in 1871, in New York state, a woman who survived him and from whom he was never di- vorced and the sole child of the mar riage died in infancy. Saxton sepa- rated from his wife, and, on Decem- Der 29, 1877, he entered into a biga- nous marriage in Hoboken, N J., with one Emma Byrne, and during the rest of Saxtonss lifetime, they lived togeth- CT as man and wife.
 Saxton's business apparently took him to various states and the woman went with him. He lived for the greater part, of the time, however, in state from 1884 to 1898 and while 1in California, three children were born to the couple. In 1898 Saxton and his family moved to Reno, New, where Saxton died the next year.
 Emma Byrne, so the court opinion says, married Saxton in good faith, without any Knowledge whatever of his prior and existing marriage, and neither she nor her children had any Knowledge of the situation until the question arose as to the. distribution of the estate of Mrs. Richards, It appears that Mrs. Richards and her family had always recognized Emma Byrne as Saxton's wife.
 By the law of California as it stood at the time of the birth of the chil- dren the issue of all marriages deem ed null in law or dissolved by divorce are held to be legitimate and, by the law of that state they would be re- garded as the legal heirs of Mrs. Richards as the Winchester probate court and the superior court held 70 Ean sS7r111 has also held them, though by a nar- row margin.
 Judge Prentice in the opinion finds that the state has no law which would be vitiated by recognition of the Cali fornia status of the Saxton children ''although it is true that we have no law on the subject of legitimacy. written or unwritten, to the same eff feet as that, of California, and quite likely it is true that public opinion in this state would not be favorable to the enactment of such law He says, however, that the policy of Con- necticut has never been to visit the sins of the parents upon the children.
 The opinion lays stress upon the policy of respecting the law of an- other state whenever it is possible and calls attention to the confusion and hardship which. would result if a con- trary policy were followed It goes on to say. GA policy of non-recogni- I1Ou In n1dCC0TS or 1SBlI4AlIdCy Wootu be in the highest degree inconvenienti for legitimacy and the right Of 1nT heritanee would be subject to huctua- ton and dependent upon boundary l 1ines.'
 Various opinions are cited to show that it has been the policy of this state to respect as far as possible the | statutes of other states and the first 1 case/ cited dates back to 1840 when | the court held that a statute of the state of New York ought not to be an- nulled because of a somewhat differ 1 ent procedure in this state.
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