Douglas v. Douglas
Douglas v. Douglas
Opinion of the Court
On about the 12th day of May, 1897, the appellant, Thomas J. Douglas, was a resident of Otero county,
We are called upon in this case to determine whether the property purchased by the appellant on his arrival here from
It will be observed from the foregoing provisions of the statute that the community property law prevails in this state, and it will therefore afford us very little light or information to examine or review authorities coming from states where the common-law rule prevails with reference to the property relations between husband and wife. It seems to be conceded by counsel on both sides of this case that the community property law does not prevail in Colorado, and did not prevail at the time that appellant and his wife acquired this property and departed from the state. Upon the trial of the case the appellant offered to introduce a part of the dissenting opinion in Schuler v. Henry, a Colorado case reported in 42 Colo. 367, 94 Pac. 360, 14 L. R. A., N. S., 1009, which quotes with approval from Denver & R. G. R. Co. v. Young, 30 Colo. 349, 70 Pac. 688, to the effect that the wife acquires no right or interest in any property accumulated by her labor and services in the performance of the usual and ordinary household duties, and that such services belong to the husband. We shall not go into this question, however, because it is conceded that the property accumulated in Colorado by appellant and his wife was the separate property of the appellant there.
Various principles of the law are discussed by respective counsel pro and con as bearing upon this question. It is urged, for instance, that the marital relation in Colorado amounted to a contract and that this property was acquired under that contract, and that to allow the wife an interest in the property in this state would be a violation of the contract
Then we have this situation: That real property is purchased in this state by a married man and during the existence and continuance of the marital relation. The prima facie presumption at once arises under our statute that this property was community property. The man who purchased it, however, and on whom the burden of showing that it is not community property rests, resists and contests the claim that such property is community property, and in doing so, shows that it was purchased wholly with personal property which was at the time his separate and individual estate. In doing so, he finds it necessary to prove the laws of the state in which he accumulated this personal property and from which he brought it in order to show that it was his separate and individual estate and that his wife, the other member of the community, had no interest in such property. It is not, therefore, a question of enforcing and executing a foreign law in this state, but it is merely a question of ascertaining what the foreign law was as one of the probative facts in establishing the ownership of the property.
This question has been considered by a number of courts where the community law prevails. Kraemer v. Kraemer, 52 Cal. 302, is a case where the husband and wife had accumulated property in Illinois which, under the laws of Illinois,
The community property law prevails in Texas, and in Blethen v. Bonner, 30 Tex. Civ. App. 585, 71 S. W. 290, the supreme court had under consideration a similar question where property had been accumulated by husband and wife in Massachusetts where the community property law does not prevail. The husband thereafter removed to Texas and invested the money in property in the latter state. The ques
“It is suggested that this view involves the enforcement of the laws of a sister state by a Texas court in the disposition of property here situated. But not so. We have merely ascertained the law of Massachusetts as a fact in determining the quality or extent of the title to money acquired in Massachusetts by a citizen or citizens of that state, and thereafter brought into and invested in this state. It may seem that Massachusetts, the boasted center of advanced thought, should long since have discarded the rule invoked in behalf of L. B. Blethen, and relegated it to its place among the rejected barbarisms of the common law. But, whatever may be our opposition to the common law in this particular, and the extent of our admiration for the rule of the civil law, so firmly embedded in the hearts and jurisprudence of the Texas people, that the fruits of the joint effort of husband and wife shall be shared equally between them, the power of the people of Massachusetts to determine for themselves the conditions upon which her citizens may acquire and hold property within her own borders must be conceded, and we have no power to alter the status of property fixed and vested by such laws before its introduction into this state. We have simply determined the character of L. B. Blethen’s title to the money with which the lands in controversy were purchased as a fact, and applied thereto the law of Texas. ’ ’
The Blethen case was followed and approved by the court of civil appeals of Texas in Thayer v. Clarke (Tex. Civ. App.), 77 S. W. 1050.
It has been further argued in this case that after an order of sale by the probate court had been made of this property on the theory that it was community property and the sale had been made and confirmed, the judgment became res ad-judicata under the authority of Clark v. Rossier, 10 Ida. 348, 78 Pac. 358, 3 Ann. Cas. 231, and that an action will not thereafter lie in the district court questioning the title conveyed under the probate sale. As was said by this court in Miller v. Mitcham, 21 Ida. 741, 123 Pac. 941, “probate courts have exclusive, original jurisdiction in the settlement of estates of deceased persons, and it is within the jurisdiction of those courts to determine who are the heirs of a deceased person and who is entitled to succeed to the estate and their respective shares and interests therein. The decrees of probate courts are conclusive in such matters. A probate court, however, does not have jurisdiction to determine adverse claims or an adverse title to real estate, except in so far as such questions arise between the heirs or devisees of an estate and are necessary to be determined in the administration of the
In this case it does not appear that appellant is urging his rights to the detriment of anyone who relied upon the probate proceeding, or that the question here involved was litigated or attempted to be litigated in that proceeding. It is true that it was assumed that this was community property at the time of the administration, but no one acquired any right or interest under the probate proceedings which will be adversely affected by this decree so far as appears from the record. We conclude, therefore, that the probate proceedings are not a bar to this action, nor do they estop the appellant here from asserting his rights.
The judgment should be reversed, and it is so ordered, and the cause is remanded with direction to take further proceedings in accordance with the views herein expressed. Coste awarded in favor of appellant.
Reference
- Full Case Name
- THOMAS J. DOUGLAS v. MARY E. DOUGLAS
- Cited By
- 23 cases
- Status
- Published
- Syllabus
- Separate Property op Husband Under Laws op Poreign State— Community Property Under Laws op Idaho — Investment op Separate Property — Administration op Estate — Probate Proceedings as Estoppel. (Syllabus by the court.) 1. Under the statute of this state, sec. 2679, Rev. Codes, “all property owned by the husband before marriage, and that acquired by gift, bequest, devise or descent is his separate property,” and under see. 3060, Rev. Codes, “Community property is property acquired by husband and wife, or either, during marriage, when not acquired as the separate property of either.” 2. Under the community property laws of this state, whenever, after marriage, the husband purchases real estate within this state, a priTJia facie presumption arises that such property is community property, and such presumption may be overcome by the husband assuming the affirmative and burden of proof and showing as a matter of fact that such property was purchased with his separate property or estate. 3. Personal property acquired during coverture is governed and controlled by the law of the matrimonial domicile, and if the title thereto and property therein was vested in the husband under the law of the domicile, it will be presumed everywhere to be his property, and the same is true of any property that was the separate and individual property of the wife under the law of the matrimonial domicile. 4. Where husband and wife during coverture accumulated property in a state where the community law did not exist and where property accumulated and acquired during coverture vests absolutely in the husband, and such property or the proceeds thereof is brought into the state of Idaho and here invested in real property, the property so acquired will be the separate property of the husband. 5. Where no proof is shown to the contrary, the presumption arises in the courts of this state that the community property law prevails in a sister state, the same as it prevails in this state. 6. In inquiring into and ascertaining the law of a sister state with reference to the title and ownership of property acquired by husband and wife in that state during coverture, the courts of this state do not make such inquiry and investigation for the purpose of executing a foreign law within this state, but rather to ascertain the status of the foreign law as a probative fact in ascertaining and establishing the title and ownership of such property at the time it is brought into this state. 7. A probate court has no jurisdiction or authority in the administration of an estate of a decedent to order or confirm the sale of real estate which belongs to someone else, and the title to which is vested in another and which property did not in fact or law belong to the estate being administered.