Court Opinion

ID: 9734478
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 17:36:08.555125+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:26:48.359690
License: Public Domain

trial judge, I would like to stress certain features.
Probate Code section 259 appears to me to say that California allows nonresident aliens to inherit California real property in the same manner that United States citizens can, if the aliens ’ country gives United States citizens not residing there the same rights to inherit real property as it gives its own resident citizens (which may or may not give the distributee the same bundle of property rights as California recognizes is obtainable by the distributee of a deceased owner).
Consequently, what must be learned is wha,t right to inherit real property the resident citizens of the other country have and what right to inherit real property in that country nonresident United States citizens have. If the rights are the same, *727then California allows the nonresident alien seeking distribution of real property here to get it; if the rights are dissimilar, then the nonresident alien will not get distribution of the real property.
Zschernig v. Miller, 389 U.S. 429 [19 L.Ed.2d 683, 88 S.Ct. 664], I feel, would not condemn Probate Code section 259 if, under it, all that could be done by local trial courts, to determine if the other country involved treated its own resident citizens and nonresident United States citizens alike, was to read the applicable written law of that country (presumably through an authenticated translation) and possibly hear expert interpretive testimony where the credibility of the foreign expert was not put into question. However, if through legislative language or through subsisting court interpretation, trial court inquiry into how the. law is administered (such as to learn that officials and- the courts of the country do not interpret its inheritance statute literally and sanction discrimination against nonresident United States citizens) is allowed, then the code section is disapproved by Zschernig. For example, if our courts hold that section 259 allows trial court inquiry to determine if distribution to a United States heir turns on the whim or caprice1 of an official (other, perhaps, than by what the written law says), it is defective. Inquiry into this subject would involve the delicate area of foreign relations and would put into balance the credibility of officials and experts from the foreign country. Estate of Larkin, 65 Cal.2d 60, 65 [52 Cal.Rptr. 441, 416 P.2d 473], suggests that even if it were found that the right of the local citizen of the other country also turned on the whim of an official (so that theoretically2 he was in no better position than the United States citizen), California would consider the nonresident citizen heir disqualified to receive distribution of real property.
Although the language of Larkin makes it clear that section 259 allows no inquiry into the so-called “balance of inheritances” (p. 81) or “democracy quotient” (p. 83) of the foreign countries whose laws of inheritance (as they relate to local and United States citizens) are concerned,3 the opinion further *728states (p. 65) : “ Though section 259 requires only the demonstration of a ‘reciprocal right’ on the part of our citizens ‘to take property upon the same terms and conditions’ as residents of the foreign country itself, we doubt that'mere equality of treatment would suffice. We would almost certainly not find the requisite reciprocity with respect to a country which permitted no inheritance at all. . . [apparently meaning to either the local citizens or to nonresident United States citizens], or which made the enforcement of inheritance rights subject to official whim or caprice [again, apparently meaning as such would relate to both the local citizens and nonresident United States citizens]. ”
Also, Estate of Chichernea, 66 Cal.2d 83, 102 [57 Cal.Rptr. 135, 424 P.2d 687], states that Larkin recognizes that section 259 impliedly requires that the right accorded by the foreign country to the United States citizen (presumably equivalent to the right accorded the local citizen) meet some minimal standard of economic substantiality.4
If these expressions in Larkin and Chichernea are the present guidepost for the trial courts and Courts of Appeal, then it must be said that section 259 opens the door into inquiry as to how official whim (even if allowed by written law) is exercised as between local and United States citizens, and this would amount to state intrusion into foreign affairs, the exclusive province of the federal government. The Larkin language is the last word on section 259 and is emphatic enough not to be ignored. Therefore, I am constrained to be in accord with the result of the written opinion of the trial judge which is being adopted as the opinion of this court.
Appellant’s petition for a hearing by the Supreme Court was denied December 3, 1969. Peters, J., was of the opinion that the petition should be granted.

See quotation on page 721 of our opinion for language of Mr. Justice Douglas in Zschernig that states have launched inquiries into whether United States citizens have, not rights, but merely dispensations turning on the "whim or caprice” of government officials.

 Praetieally there is the likelihood that the whim would more often be exercised favorably toward him than toward the United States citizen.

Such evidence does not truly relate to the issues . . . [and] introduces factors which section 259 and the United States Constitution exclude from . . . consideration.” (Pp. 82, 84.)

Chichernea holds that this does not have to include the right to remove the value of the foreign country real property from its confines.