Court Opinion

ID: 3306367
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2016-07-05 17:21:06.267015+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:33:19.706976
License: Public Domain

I concur solely because, under the decision in Tolman v. Smith,85 Cal. 280, [24 P. 743], and other cases cited in the opinion of Judge Sloss, it had become settled law that the presumption was that property conveyed to the wife with the knowledge and consent of the husband was community property, that the fact that the conveyance was so made to her with his consent did not raise an inference that it was intended by him as a gift to her, or, at all events, that such inference was not sufficient to overcome the said presumption, that this had become a rule of property and that the amendment of 1889 (Stats. 1889, p. 328), to section 164 of the Civil Code, declaring that a conveyance to the wife should be presumptive *Page 533 
evidence that the property conveyed is her separate estate, is not retroactive and does not apply to conveyances previously made. Were it an original question, I should say the rule, prior to the amendment, should have been that such conveyance to the wife with the husband's consent was prima facie evidence that he intended the property to be a gift to her, and that the property thereby vested in her as her separate estate, that this was a rule of evidence and that the effect and purpose of the amendment of 1889 was to declare the correct rule of evidence and abrogate the false rule previously followed by the courts, and, hence, that said amendment was applicable to prior transactions and was so intended. If the law had not thus been settled it seems clear that the natural inference that a gift was intended, arising from the conveyance to the wife in this case, would be presumptive evidence thereof and would support the conclusion of the trial court, notwithstanding the testimony of the husband, manifestly to his interest, that it was not so intended.