249 P. 197 | Cal. | 1926
This appeal is from a judgment of the superior court in and for the county of Los Angeles in the plaintiff's favor and in an action brought by her against the defendant, her husband, to quiet her title to the piece of real property described in her complaint; and to determine the rights of the parties to the action thereto and declare the same under the provisions of section 1060 of the Code of Civil Procedure. In her complaint the plaintiff alleged that the parties to said action had intermarried in the city of Los Angeles, state of California, on the nineteenth day of June, 1907, and that they had ever since been husband and wife; that neither of said parties had at the time of their said *320 marriage any separate property; that ever since April 27, 1918, said plaintiff has been in possession of that certain piece of real estate described in her complaint under and by virtue of a deed of the same to her, which deed is attached as an exhibit to her complaint; that said property was wholly paid for from community funds of the parties hereto while living together as husband and wife and acquired by them since July 27, 1917. The plaintiff further alleged that she claims ownership of and title to "an undivided one-half valid present vested interest" in and to the said community property; that the defendant denies that said plaintiff has or had ownership of or title to an undivided one-half or any valid or vested or present interest in said property and claims adversely to plaintiff that said property belongs wholly and entirely to the defendant and that by virtue of the community property laws of California said defendant is invested with the sole ownership of said property. Wherefore the plaintiff prays that the defendant be required to set forth the nature of his adverse claim and that the same may be determined by said court; and that it be declared and adjudged that the plaintiff is the owner in fee simple of an undivided one-half valid present vested interest in and to said property and for such other and further relief as to the court may seem just and equitable. The defendant answered admitting in the main the allegations of said complaint, with the exception of those wherein the plaintiff asserted that she has or is entitled to any valid or present or vested interest in said property; and in that behalf alleged that the defendant has and is entitled to the ownership of and title to the whole of said property, and that whatever interest the plaintiff has therein is a mere expectancy and is not property nor any vested right therein entitled to legal protection, at least until such time as the community is dissolved by death or divorce. Wherefore he prays that the plaintiff take nothing by her action. The cause went to trial upon such issues as were thus made up and upon its submission the trial court rendered and entered its judgment in the plaintiff's favor, based upon findings embodied therein in substantial accord with the averments of the plaintiff's complaint, to the effect that the plaintiff's title to an undivided one-half interest in the said property be quieted as against said defendant and the said plaintiff be decreed to be *321 the owner of "an undivided one-half valid present vested interest" in and to the said property. From such judgment the defendant has taken this appeal.
Since the taking and presentation of this appeal to this court for decision numerous amici curiae have appeared, represented by able counsel in support of and in opposition to the claims asserted by the said plaintiff upon which said judgment is predicated; and it is the vigor with which these amici curiae have supported their respective contentions by argument and by briefs which has prevailed upon the court to indulge at this time in a general review of the subject of community property under the laws of California as interpreted by the past decisions of this court and as affected by comparatively recent legislation.
The constitution of California adopted in 1849 contained the following provision:
"Sec. 14. All property, both real and personal, of the wife, owned or claimed by her before marriage, and that acquired afterward by gift, devise or descent, shall be her separate property, and laws shall be passed more clearly defining the rights of the wife in relation as well to her separate property as to that held in common with her husband. Laws shall also be passed providing for the registration of the wife's separate property." (Const. of 1849, art. XI, sec. 14.)
The said constitution also contained in the schedule thereto the following provision:
"All rights, prosecutions, claims, and contracts, as well as of individuals as of bodies corporate, and all laws in force at the time of the adoption of this constitution and not inconsistent therewith, until altered or repealed by the legislature, shall continue as if the same had not been adopted." (Schedule, sec. 1.)
It may be assumed that in the adoption of these provisions of that early constitution the framers thereof had in mind the provisions and stipulations of the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, which had been entered into in the month of February of the previous year between the governments of the United States and Mexico, by virtue of which the territory which embraced the present state of California had been ceded to the former, and which contained certain provisions intended for the protection of private property rights *322
owned by Mexicans within the territory thus ceded at the time the treaty was made. It may also be assumed that the members of the first legislature of the state of California organized presently under the provisions of said constitution had the like provisions of said treaty in mind in the formulation of those laws which said legislature proceeded to adopt in obedience to the mandate of said organic law; for while said legislature during the course of its session adopted an act providing that "The common law of England, so far as it is not repugnant to or inconsistent with the constitution of the United States or the constitution or laws of this state, is the rule of decision in all the courts of this state" (Stats. 1850, p. 219), it also a few days later enacted a statute entitled "An act defining the rights of husband and wife." (Stats. 1850, p. 254.) Section 1 of said act provided that "All property, both real and personal, of the wife, owned by her before marriage, and that acquired afterwards by gift, bequest, devise, or descent, shall be her separate property; and all property, both real and personal, owned by the husband before marriage, and that acquired by him afterwards, by gift, bequest, devise, or descent, shall be his separate property." Section 2 of said act provided that "All property acquired after the marriage by either husband or wife, except such as may be acquired by gift, bequest, devise, or descent, shall be common property." Section 6 of said act provided that "The husband shall have the management and control of the separate property of the wife during the continuance of the marriage." Section 9 of said act provided that "The husband shall have the entire management and control of the common property, with the like absolute power of disposition as of his own separate estate. The rents and profits of the separate property of either husband or wife shall be deemed common property." Section 10 of said act provided that "No estate shall be allowed to the husband as tenant by courtesy upon the decease of his wife, nor any estate in dower be allowed to the wife upon the decease of her husband." Section 11 of said act provided: "Upon dissolution of the community by the death of either husband or wife, one-half of the common property shall go to the survivor, and the other half to the descendants of the deceased husband or wife, subject to the payment of the debts of the deceased. If there be no *323
descendants of the deceased husband or wife, the whole shall go to the survivor, subject to such payment." Section 12 of said act provided: "In case of the dissolution of the marriage, by the decree of any court of competent jurisdiction, the common property shall be equally divided between the parties, and the court granting the decree shall make such order for the division of the common property, or the sale and equal distribution of the proceeds thereof, as the nature of the case may require." The first judicial reference to the foregoing provisions of this act occurs in the case of Panaud v. Jones,
Thus the course of decision touching this subject stood for another decade until the case of Estate of Moffitt arose under the Inheritance Tax Statute approved March 20, 1905 (Stats. 1905, p. 341), wherein it was provided that "All property which shall pass by will or by the intestate laws of this state from any person who may die seized or possessed *335 of the same . . . shall be and is subject to a tax hereinafter provided for." The single question presented upon appeal in the above case was whether the surviving wife's share of the community property was subject, under the terms of said statute, to an inheritance tax. In determining that question the court reviewed its past decisions, fully approving its most recent utterances in the cases of Estate of Burdick and Spreckels v.Spreckels, supra, and also restating with approval the conclusions of Chief Justice Field and Mr. Justice Cope as to the state of the Spanish and Mexican laws from which the statute of 1850 had been derived as expounded in Van Maren v. Johnson and Packard v. Arellanes, supra, and quoting from the latter as declaring that "so long as the community exists her interest is a mere expectancy and possesses none of the attributes of an estate either at law or in equity." The court accordingly held that the community interest of the wife derived from her husband upon his death was subject to the provisions of the said inheritance tax law.
Before proceeding further with an examination of our decisions touching this subject it may be well to glance briefly at the course of legislation upon it. We have already noted the provisions of the act of 1850. That statute remained unchanged until the year 1861, when section 11 thereof was amended so as to provide that upon the death of the wife the whole of the community property, instead of one-half as formerly, should go to the surviving husband. (Stats. 1861, p. 310.) In the year 1864 (Stats. 1863-64, p. 363), section 11 of the act of 1850 was further amended so as to dispense with any administration upon the community property in the event the wife died first. The act of 1850, with its foregoing amendments, was carried into the Civil Code upon its adoption in 1872, and the law of community property as thus codified and as the same had been thus far interpreted, remained practically unchanged until the year 1891, when section 172 of the Civil Code which up to that year had read: "The husband has the management and control of the community property with the like absolute power of disposition, other than testamentary, as he has of his separate estate," was amended by adding thereto this provision: "Provided, however that he cannot make a gift of such community property, or convey the same without a *336
valuable consideration unless the wife in writing consent thereto." In the year 1901 (Stats. 1901, p. 598), the following further proviso was added to said section: "And provided also that no sale, conveyance or incumbrance of the furniture, furnishings and fittings of the home or of the clothing and wearing apparel of the wife or minor children, which is community property, shall be made without the written consent of the wife." In the case of Spreckels v. Spreckels, supra, it was earnestly urged that by the amendment to section 172 of the Civil Code in 1891 the status of the husband as invested with the sole ownership of the community property had been changed and that the wife had thereby become invested with an ownership in the undivided one-half thereof. The court did not, however, deem it necessary to dispose of that question in that case, confining itself to the declaration that any legislative attempt to encroach upon the vested ownership by the husband of the property of the community so as to be retroactive upon such property owned by him prior thereto would be unconstitutional as an interference with his vested rights in such property. In the second case ofSpreckels v. Spreckels,
In what has been heretofore said in this opinion we are not unmindful of the fact that in certain of the other states which have been designated as "community property states," or in other words, states which immediately derived or have mediately adopted their laws relating to community property from the laws of Spain and Mexico, a different interpretation of those laws and of the statutes based thereon has prevailed, and that much emphasis has been laid during the presentation of this cause in the argument and briefs of counsel upon the divergence existing between the decisions in California and in these several other jurisdictions. Discussions of this character are interesting but are by no means controlling in dealing with questions involving conflicts in laws. California was as much entitled as New Mexico or Texas or Washington to adopt and to persist in its own interpretation of the meaning and effect of the Spanish and Mexican laws in relation to the wife's interest in the community property. Having made and persisted in its own interpretation of these originals through all these years and having by so doing created and consistently adhered to such interpretation as to render the same a fully established rule of property it is for the legislature, but not for this court, to depart from such rule. Up to and including the year 1917 the legislature has not, in our opinion, seen fit so to do. The parties to this action acquired the property affected by this litigation during the year 1918. It being admitted that the property then became and has since been community property, the respective rights of the said parties thereto, in so far as those rights do or do not amount to vested interests therein, must be determined by the state of the law at the date of their acquisition of said property. (Spreckels v.Spreckels,
The judgment is reversed.
Shenk, J., Waste, C.J., Curtis, J., and Seawell, J., concurred.
Rehearing denied. *344