Unfortunately, when there is no will, a person's estate (the money and assets they leave behind) must be distributed according the rules for "intestate succession" (the laws for who gets what when there is no will). Those rules do not care about the quality of the relationship or whether the people who inherit deserve to inherit; all that matters is the degree of relationship. In your state (CA), if someone passes away without a surviving spouse or children, but has surving parents, her parents inherit *everything* even if there is also a surving spouse. There is no way around this.