Court Opinion

ID: 3308849
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2016-07-05 17:22:44.725996+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:29:47.255738
License: Public Domain

In their petition for a rehearing counsel for appellant reiterate the argument that our construction of the code provisions relating to the proof of foreign wills (Code Civ. Proc., secs. 1322-1324) can only be sustained by reading into the statute a qualification of the words "all wills" which will limit its application to wills "of a certain kind," contrary to the intention of the legislature and the general understanding of the courts of the state and the legal profession. I take leave to doubt this general understanding of the courts and the profession, and again call the attention of counsel to the fact that it is wholly unnecessary to read anything into the statute in order to limit its application to wills of a certain kind. The qualifying words are plainly written in the statute, and the fault is with counsel in ignoring their existence and their force. The statute does not say "all wills" and stop there. Its language is (sec. 1322) "all wills duly proved and allowed" in any other state or foreign country. Wills that have been duly proved and allowed are wills "of a certain kind," and in order to determine whether a particular will is of that kind we have to give a construction to the words "duly proved and allowed." When, therefore, is a will duly proved and allowed? Proof of a will is a proceeding in rem. To the validity of any judgment in rem — a judgment which as to the res binds all the world — there must be adequate public notice of the proceeding, and such notice must emanate from a court which has jurisdiction of the res. When the will of a resident of this state is the res, is it possible that the courts of every civilized country on the globe have a concurrent jurisdiction upon *Page 125 
published notice to determine its validity? If we look to our own statute for a test of jurisdiction in such cases, we find that we confine the jurisdiction to the county of which the decedent was a resident at the time of his death, and this, it is safe to say, is the ordinary rule. Authority to take proof of wills is confined to courts whose territorial jurisdiction includes the domicile of the decedent. The fact that in this state, as in other states and countries, wills of non-residents are admitted to probate on original proceedings for the purpose of administering upon their property within the state is no impeachment of this proposition. In such cases it is the property within this state and subject to its jurisdiction which constitutes the res, and proof of the will is allowed as a mere incident or means of determining the disposition of that property. And the decree which has only that purpose is conclusive only to that extent. It binds that property here and everywhere that the decrees of our courts are accorded full faith and credit, whether by comity or by force of the federal constitution. But such a decree is not binding as to the will itself in other jurisdictions where the decedent may have left property, and still less is it binding upon the courts of his domicile. It is not conclusive in other jurisdictions simply because, as a will and for all purposes, it has not been duly proved and allowed. It has been proved and allowed so far as it affects the disposition of the property within the particular jurisdiction, but no farther.
The considerations thus briefly indicated, it seems to me, ought to have prevented the hasty construction which we are told has been generally placed upon our statute by the profession and the courts in this state. As to the courts, it is true that in three instances, as shown by our records, the construction contended for by counsel has been accepted by the trial court, but in this court decrees admitting wills of residents of California to probate, on proof of foreign probate, have never been sustained, except as against collateral attack. My own opinion is clear that no will has been duly proved and allowed within the meaning of sections 1322-1324 of the Code of Civil Procedure, unless the proof has been taken in a court whose territorial jurisdiction includes the domicile of the testator. When a will has been admitted to probate here on proof of its admission to probate in some other jurisdiction, *Page 126 
not including the domicile of the decedent, the decree and proceedings regularly taken under it are, of course, secure against what in Goldtree v. McAlister, 86 Cal. 93, [24 P. 801], is held to be collateral attack, and this irrespective of the question whether that decision can be reconciled with a correct construction of the statute. Correct or not, the rule of that case has become a rule of property, and as such must be upheld upon the doctrine of stare decisis for the protection of vested rights.