Court Opinion

ID: 9551775
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 18:58:56.95348+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:24:35.157959
License: Public Domain

TRAYNOR, J.
— I dissent. The question at issue is not the wisdom of Probate Code sections 228 and 229 or the power of the Legislature to control the succession to property but the applicability of these sections to property acquired by a husband and wife in a common-law state and brought to this state by the surviving spouse who dies intestate here. Their applicability depends neither upon their wisdom nor the range of legislative power but upon whether the Legislature has exercised its power in this particular legislation. Yet the majority opinion gives no heed to the language of Probate Code sections 228 or 229, the provisions of the Civil Code defining community property and separate property, or the decisions of this court interpreting those definitions. Its reasoning is that there is a legislative purpose to give the property to the family of the spouse through whose efforts it was accumulated, and that this purpose can be fulfilled only by applying sections 228 and 229 to all property subject to probate proceedings in California irrespective of its previous character in a foreign jurisdiction. This reasoning admittedly involves a reclassification, for the purposes of succession, of property acquired by a husband and wife while domiciled in a foreign jurisdiction. The majority opinion points to no statutory provisions calling for such a reclassification but attempts to fill the gap by the declaration that such a reclassification is implicit in its own construction of the scope -of the legislative purpose. It has thus construed the legislative purpose to extend beyond the legislative language and then read into the language an implication that alone would make possible the execution of the enlarged purpose.
Were the legislative purpose as extensive as the majority opinion construes it to be, its accomplishment would hardly be left to the chance of an implication indirectly arrived at. The Legislature’s silence is particularly significant in view of its past activity in bringing within the community property laws property acquired by husbands and wives while domiciled beyond the state’s borders. (See Estate of Erees, *573187 Cal. 150 [201 P. 112] ; Estate of Drishaus, 199 Cal. 369 [249 P. 515] ; Estate of Thornton, 1 Cal.2d 1 [33 P.2d 1, 92 A.L.R. 1343].) Sections 228 and 229 expressly refer to community property and separate property, terms peculiar to community property laws, and make no provision for translating into these terms property acquired under other laws.
If the property acquired by Mrs. Perkins as gifts from her husband and as beneficiary of his life insurance policies was not community property when she acquired it, or was not transformed into community property when she brought it to California, its succession is not controlled by section 228 of the Probate Code. If it was not separate property of the husband when Mrs. Perkins acquired it from him, section 229 of the Probate Code cannot govern its succession. In other words, if her absolute ownership under the laws of New York was not modified when she became domiciled in this state, her sisters are entitled to succeed to her estate under section 225 of the Probate Code.
At the time of Mrs. Perkins’ death section 228 read as follows: “If the .decedent leaves neither spouse nor issue, anji the estate, or any portion thereof was community property of decedent and a previously deceased spouse . . . such property goes in equal shares to the children of the deceased spouse . . . and if none, then one-half of such community property goes to the parents of the decedent. . . and the other half goes to the parents of the deceased spouse....” Section 229 read as follows: “If the decedent leaves neither spouse nor issue, and the estate or any portion thereof was separate property of a previously deceased spouse, and came to the decedent from such spouse by gift, descent, devise or bequest, such property goes to the children of the deceased spouse . . . and if none then to the parents of the deceased spouse. ...”
These sections embody laws of succession and relate to classifications that existed during the lives of the spouses. (See W. W. Ferrier, Jr., Rules of Descent Under Prohate Code, §§ 228 and 229, 25 Cal.L.Rev. 261.) They do not define community property or separate property for purposes of succession; they do not even come into operation until the character of the property has been determined under the appropriate statutes governing the classification of property as community or separate. They govern the succession only of what “was community property” and what “was *574separate property” during the lives of its owners. The meaning of those terms, and therefore the scope of the sections, can be found only in the definitions in sections 162, 163 and 164 of the Civil Code. If the property is not encompassed by these sections it cannot be regarded as having been community property or the separate property of a predeceased spouse, and sections 228 and 229 can have no application.
Sections 162 and 163 of the Civil Code provide that all property owned by either spouse before marriage or acquired afterwards by gift, bequest, devise or descent, together with the rents, issues, and profits thereof is his or her separate property. Section 164 provides that all other property acquired after marriage by either spouse or both is community property.
These sections could not transform the property in question into community property while it was being acquired by the husband in New York. Nor was the property converted into community property when Mrs. Perkins became domiciled in this state. The provision in section 164 that personal property acquired while the spouses were domiciled elsewhere is community property when it would not be the separate property of either if acquired while domiciled in this state was held unconstitutional in Estate of Thornton, 1 Cal.2d 1 [33 P.2d 1, 92 A.L.R. 1343]. This case also held that section 164 could not be considered a statute of succession and that its definition of community property did not apply, even for purposes of succession, to property that persons acquired while domiciled in another state. In that ease Mr. and Mrs. Thornton came to California with personal property that they acquired while domiciled in Montana. Upon Mr. Thornton’s death his wife claimed one-half the property under Probate Code, section 201 providing that “upon the death of either husband or wife one-half of the community property belongs to the surviving spouse.” In holding that Civil Code section 164 could not transform the property into community property the court denied Mrs. Thornton’s claim to one-half the property under Probate Code, section 201. Justice Langdon dissented on the ground that Probate Code section 201 used the term community property as defined in Civil Code section 164, and as broadened by that definition was constitutional. In the present case Mr. Perkins never came to California with Mrs. Perkins *575so that there is even greater reason than in Estate of Thornton for holding that the property brought into this state was not community property. Since Civil Code section 164 does not extend, for purposes of succession under Probate Code section 201, to property acquired in another state, it cannot be so extended for purposes of succession under Probate Code section 228 without an outright repudiation of Estate of Thornton.
Whatever the merits of the majority and dissenting opinions on the highly controversial issues in Estate of Thornton, the Legislature took account of the decision and qualified its effect by adding section 201.5 to the Probate Code providing: “Upon the death of either husband or wife one-half of all personal property, wherever situated, heretofore or hereafter acquired after marriage by either husband or wife, or both, while domiciled elsewhere, which would not have been the separate property of either if acquired while domiciled in this state, shall belong to the surviving spouse; the other one-half is subject to the testamentary disposition of decedent, and in absence thereof goes to the surviving spouse. ...” This section is based on the theory that succession to property acquired by a husband and wife before they were domiciled in this state should be subject to the rule governing the succession to property acquired by spouses domiciled here. It applies only in the case of a surviving spouse and does not extend to such cases as the present one involving heirs other than a surviving spouse. The Legislature was apparently not then ready to devise a provision comparable to section 201.5 that would apply to such situations.
Although the estate in question had its source in Mr. Perkins’s marital earnings it was never community property. Since it was not community property when acquired and was not converted into community property when Mrs. Perkins became domiciled here, Probate Code section 228 cannot govern its succession.
Likewise section 229 does not govern its succession. That section does not bring the property within its purview, for the term “separate property” is but a differentiation from the term “community property” in section 228. It is well established that the two sections are interdependent and must be construed together. (Estate of Rattray, 13 Cal.2d 702 [91 P.2d 1042]; Estate of Simonton, 183 Cal. 53 [190 P. *576442].) Section 229 envisages “separate property” as that acquired other than by marital earnings and the fruits thereof envisaged by section 228. (Estate of Rattray, supra; Estate of Bill, 179 Cal. 683 [178 P. 710].) When the property in question was acquired by Mr. Perkins in New York it could no more be classified as “separate property” than as “community property” under the laws of this state. As a nonresident who never came to California he was untouched by its laws. He never owned, and therefore never gave community property in the sense of section 228, or separate property in the sense of section 229. In defining “separate property of the husband” section 163 of the Civil Code, in contrast to section 164, does not purport to include property acquired by an owner while domiciled in another state. There is therefore less reason to hold that it includes such property in its definition for purposes of succession under Probate Code section 229 than there would have been to hold in Estate of Thornton, supra, that such property could be included in the definition in Civil Code section 164 for purposes of succession under Probate Code section 201. Even if Civil Code section 163 could be given an extraterritorial operation, the property in question as marital earnings would not meet the requirements of separate property set forth in that section. To treat such earnings as if they were separate property would do violence to the scheme of succession embodied in Probate Code sections 228 and 229, which contemplates that in the event both spouses die without lineal descendants, marital earnings are to be inherited equally by the respective families of the two spouses by whose efforts it was accumulated. (Estate of Bill, 179 Cal. 683 [178 P. 710].)
In Estate of Allshouse, 13 Cal.2d 691 [91 P.2d 887], holding that Probate Code section 229 did hot apply to the succession of property that had its source in marital earnings in another state, this court declared: “But the facts of the present case afford no basis for application of the rule. The husband stayed in Missouri and there made provision for his wife and for respondent in contemplation of the operation of the property laws of that jurisdiction. There was no change of marital domicile; no change of situs of the property. The assets were still in Missouri at the time of the husband’s death, and they there passed into the ownership of the widow, The widow’s act in later establishing a domi*577eile in this state, subjecting her property to its laws, should not have the retroactive effect of a prior act of the husband which would have changed the nature of his own ownership. In short, to reclassify the husband’s Missouri holding would be for this state to reach beyond its borders and impose its substantially different classification upon both a former owner and a former ownership which obtained in a foreign jurisdiction. This may not be done.
“Respondent, therefore, is not entitled by virtue of section 229, supra, to distribution of the division of property here under discussion. And as there is no California statute of succession which provides that the estate of a widow which originated in transfers to her of property held by her previously deceased husband in common law sole ownership shall revert to the husband’s line, an estate derived from such source and brought into California by the widow, who here died intestate and without issue, is her separate property, having for purposes of application of the laws of succession the same status as the separate property of one who has never married. It follows that the portion of decedent’s estate which comes within this classification is distributable under section 225 of the Probate Code.”
Likewise in the present case the only ownership with which this court is concerned is that of the widow, who as a single person first brought the property within California law after her husband’s death. The ownership of the property by the predeceased spouse and its then classification terminated before the property was brought to California. The ownership and classification of the personal property before it was brought, to California by the widow was sole ownership of an unmarried person and had thereafter in California the same status as the property of one who had never married.
Respondent argues that under the law of New York the husband’s rights in the property at the time of acquisition were equivalent to the rights of a California husband with respect to separate property in California, and that section 229 should govern the succession of the property as it would separate property in California. The property, however, would not be the husband’s separate property had he acquired it while domiciled in this state, but on the contrary would be community property because it represented marital earnings. It is a strange construction that interprets the term “separate property” in a California statute to include *578the very kind of property it was designed to exclude. Under respondent’s theory the terms “separate property” and “community property” would apply to property of California husbands and wives as the California statutes contemplate, but in their proposed application to the property of non-residents the term “separate property” would be made to include property that would be regarded as community property in the case of residents. Confusion and inconsistency would inevitably attend any attempt to translate the property rights of nonresident husbands and wives in a common-law state in terms of the property classifications of a community property state.
The majority opinion having read into Probate Code sections 228 and 229 a legislative intent to reclassify property acquired outside the state proceeds to overrule Estate of Allshouse, supra, which would govern this case, on the ground that it is not consistent with the attributed intent. It has gone far afield to avoid the facts that California classifications do not apply to property acquired by husbands and wives while domiciled outside the state and that provisions for the reclassification of property acquired in foreign jurisdictions do not include the rules embodied in sections 228 and 229. It has gone so far afield as to formulate a statute of succession that the Legislature itself did not undertake to formulate when it had occasion to do so. Whatever the court’s view of the wisdom of the rules of succession prescribed by the Legislature, it is timely to recall that they are not immutable, and that the task of their periodic revision falls properly to the Legislature. (Estate of de Cigaran, 150 Cal. 682, 688 [89 P. 833] ; Estate of Nigro, 172 Cal. 474, 477 [156 P. 1019].)
The judgment should be reversed.
Gibson, C. J., and Curtis, J., concurred.
Appellant’s petition for a rehearing was denied March 11, 1943. Gibson, C. J., Curtis, J., and Traynor, J., voted for a rehearing.