Court Opinion

ID: 9536378
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 06:58:43.712899+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T14:54:23.478821
License: Public Domain

McGHEE, Justice (dissenting in part). I concur in the majority opinion except the part holding judgment may be recovered on a community property claim on the testimony of a husband and his wife. In my opinion the purpose of the statute requiring corroboration was to prevent the collection of bogus claims from an estate, when the lips of one of the parties to the claimed transaction are sealed. It is a cardinal rule of statutory construction that the intention of the legislature in passing a statute is the primary and controlling consideration in determining its proper construction. State v. Southern Pac. Co., 34 N.M. 306, 281 P. 29. ■In view of the purpose of the statute and the well known temptation that exists in the minds of evilly disposed persons to make false claims, I do not believ'e the interpretation the majority gives to the statute is justified. So construed the legislature is thwarted in its efforts to avoid the evils existing in this respect. I agree that statutes limiting the right of persons to testify should ordinarily receive a strict construction. Such a rule, however, should not be followed when absurdity would result or the legislature be frustrated in its effort to cure a public evil. State v. Southern Pac. Co., supra. My objection to the holding that the wife is a competent witness to corroborate her husband on a claim which is the property of the community goes deeper than mere statutory construction upon which the majority lay such stress. It is that the wife is actually a party, through her agent and representative, her husband, as the statutory head of the community, although her name does not appear in the caption of the complaint. It has long been the law of this state that, save for certain exceptions, an action must be brought in the name of the real party in interest. District Court Rule 17 (a). The wife has a present, vested, one-half interest in the community property, in every respect equal to that of the husband and he is her agent in handling the affairs of their community. Dillard v. New Mexico State Tax Commission, 53 N.M. 12, 201 P.2d 345. The claim here involved is community property and absent the law that the husband has the management and control of the personal property, and is its agent, the wife would have been a necessary party to this action. Sec. 65-403, 1941 Compilation; Levy v. Kalabich, 35 N.M. 282, 295 P. 296. It was said by the Supreme Court of the United States in Poe v. Seaborn, 282 U.S. 101, 51 S.Ct. 58, 59, 75 L.Ed. 239, in construing community statutes of Washington which to all intents and purposes are the same as ours: ' “ * * * The community must act through an agent. This Court has said with respect to the community property system (Warburton v. White, 176 U.S. 494, 20 S. Ct. 404, 408, 44 L.Ed. 555) that 'property acquired during marriage with community funds became an acquet of the community and not the sole property oí the one in whose name the property was bought, although by the law existing at the time the husband was given the management, control, and power of sale of such property. This right being vested in him, not because he was the exclusive owner, but because by law he was created the agent of the community.’ “In that case, it was held that such agency of the husband was neither a contract nor a property right vested in him, and that it was competent to the legislature which created the relation to alter it, to confer the agency on the wife alone, or to confer a joint agency on both spouses, if it saw fit — all without infringing any property right of the husband: See, also, Arnett v. Reade, 220 U.S. 311, at page 319, 31 S.Ct. 425, 55 L.Ed. 477. “ * * * The obligations oif the husband as agent of the community are no less real because the policy of the State limits the wife’s ftght to call him to account in a court. * * * The law’s investiture of the husband with broad powers, by no means negatives the wife’s present interest as a co-owner.” After quoting the above from Poe v. Seaborn, except a portion omitted for brevity, this court said in the Dillard case, supra: “It is thus made plain that the vested interest of the wife is in no manner affected by the husband’s agency for the community; and we adopt this holding as applicable to our community property laws. The legislature has given this control to the husband, and the legislature can take it away. In fact the legislature has provided that under certain conditions the wife may be substituted for the husband as the head of the community with all the authority given him by law. Sec. 65-405. N.M.Sts. 1941.” [201 P.2d 350.] Levy v. Kalabich, supra, was an action to enjoin a judicial sale of real estate under a decree foreclosing a mechanic’s lien in favor of A. L. Levy against Mi'lo Kalabich. An injunction was awarded upon the intervention of Edith Kalabich, wife of Milo, on the sole ground that the real estate was community property, and that the intervening wife had not been made a party defendant in the foreclosure suit. The trial court held that the decree was void for lack of- jurisdiction. This court, speaking through Mr. Justice Watson, said that the statute giving the husband management and control of the community property was only declaratory of the law in this state as it heretofore existed. It then quoted from Beals v. Ares, 25 N.M. 459, 185 P. 780, that our community property laws were modeled after the civil law of Spain and Mexico, and that we should look to that law for definitions and interpretations, and stated that construed as Beals v. Ares directed, the husband’s “management and control” embraced the right and duty to represent the community in its litigation, and that the wife was not, therefore, a necessary party to the foreclosure suit. The community is the owner of the claim involved here and, as I view the matter, t'he husband brought the action for himself and as agent of the wife by authority of the legislature, so that to all intents and purposes she is a party to the action. The undoubted purpose of the statute was to avoid false claims and perjury in support thereof, so it was said that a party to the action could not recover against an estate unless corroborated. Surely it is not the name used as a party plaintiff that tempts the perjury, but the interest of the one prosecuting such claim to get a share of the estate. Under the majority holding one represented in the action by her agent is a competent corroborating witness, but the one who filed the case for himself and wife is not competent to. make proof without corroboration. On the other hand, if the wife be named the head of the community, then the tables may be turned. She files the claim and the husband furnishes the corroborating testimony. If an action is filed 'by the husband as head of t'he community and the wife furnishes the corroborating testimony, but before the case is decided or the judgment signed, the wife is substituted as head of the community, I assume the claim would fail for lack of corroboration. I believe it is a common practice in New Mexico for the owners of unpaid accounts to assign them to others for suit in the name of the assignee. Under the majority opinion-the assignee will now be able to file a claim against the estate of a deceased person and the beneficial owners may then furnish the necessary evidence in support thereof, and thus be able to circumvent the statute here involved. I assume the heretofore universally accepted adage that “A rose is as sweet by any other name” must no- longer be recognized in judicial proceedings in New Mexico. It is likely that modesty prevents a statement in the opinion by the distinguished members composing the majority that they have given the bench and bar o-f New Mexico the new legal maxim, “The name is the thing”, so I so- summarize their holding on the disputed question and publish it to the world. Such a result does not, in my opinion, add up to good law or carry out the legislative intent. The majority holding otherwise, I dissent.