Court Opinion

ID: 9864600
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-25 14:16:42.691101+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:19:16.093103
License: Public Domain

THE COURT.
We concur in the conclusion of the district court of appeal as to the capacity of the respondents to inherit from Tobe Funkenstein, through their deceased father, Newman Wolf, but in denying the application for a hearing in this court we deem it proper to say that we are not entirely in accord with all the reasoning by which that conclusion is reached by that court. We cannot agree either that section 1387 of the Civil Code has no application to children situated as are the respondents, or that, fairly construed, *297that section excludes respondents from taking a share of the estate of the mother of their deceased father. To our minds the term “illegitimate child” as used in both sections 1387 and 1388 includes illegitimate children who have been legitimated, and in so far as they lay down rules of succession contrary to the general rules found in section 1386 of the Civil Code, must prevail as to any child born illegitimate. (See Estate of De Cigaran, 150 Cal. 682, [89 Pac. 833].) But, in our opinion, section 1387 should be construed as not providing any rule contrary to section 1386, in so far as children situated as respondents are concerned. When the section expressly provides, as it does, that an illegitimate child “does not represent his father or mother by inheriting any part of the estate of his or her kindred, either lineal or collateral, unless, before his death, his parents shall have intermarried, and his father, after such marriage, acknowledges him as his child, or adopts him into his family, ” it by necessary implication recognizes the right of one whose parents intermarry and whose father, after such marriage, acknowledges him as his child or adopts him into his family, to represent his father or mother by inheriting from the kindred of either, either lineal or collateral, just as a legitimate child would inherit under section 1386 of the Civil Code. We do not believe that the succeeding clause, commencing with the words, “in which case such child and all the legitimate children are considered brothers and sisters,” etc., should be construed as a limitation on this right. This clause was manifestly intended to remove all doubt as to the right of brothers and sisters to inherit from each other where one of them is legitimated as provided in the preceding part of the section, and gives the legitimated child a right of direct inheritance from brothers and sisters, in addition to the right of inheritance by representation conferred by the preceding clausé. The result is the same as that reached by Mr. Justice Kerrigan in the opinion of the district court of appeal, viz., that section 1386 does apply in this ease, and that under its provisions respondents are, in view of the facts, heirs of Tobe Punkenstein.
The application for a hearing in this court is denied.
Mr. Justice Melvin and Mr. Justice Lawlor dissented from the order denying a hearing in this court.