Warburton v. White
Warburton v. White
Opinion of the Court
The question to he determined in this case is whether the husband succeeds to all the property which was purchased by himself and wife with community funds in this state (then a territory) in 1878, or whether one-half of said property descends to the heirs of the wife. It is contended by the appellant that the property descends to the husband by right of survivorship under the laws of 1873 and 1875 (Laws 1873, p. 450; Laws 1875, p. 53), and a very painstaking and exhaustive brief has been filed in support of this contention. As an original proposition the brief and argument of appellant would be exceedingly interesting, but the uniform holding of this court for the last fifteen years has been to the contrary. This question was first decided adversely to appellant’s contention in Holyoke v. Jackson, 3 Wash. T. 235 (3 Pac. 841), in the year 1882. The same question has been expressly decided by this court in Hill v. Young, 7 Wash. 33 (34 Pac. 144), and Mabie v. Whittaker, 10 Wash. 656 (39 Pac. 172), and incidentally decided in probably forty other cases, so that the rule announced by these cases has become the established rule of law and of property in this state. Eights have been established and have grown up under these decisions which it would be wrong to now disturb, even if the court should conclude that the rule as originally announced was faulty. In consideration, therefore, of this long settled and well established doctrine we do not feel called upon to enter into a discussion of the questions involved.
The judgment will be affirmed.
ON PETITION EOR RE-HEARING.
This cause is before us on a petition for a rehearing, appellant asking a further consideration of the question before urged by him in his brief and on the oral
The petition is denied.
Reference
- Full Case Name
- Stanton Warburton v. Matilda B. White
- Cited By
- 4 cases
- Status
- Published
- Syllabus
- COMMUNITY PROPERTY — RIGHTS OP SURVIVING SPOUSE — VESTED RIGHTS — CONSTITUTIONAL LAW. Under the established rule of law and of property in this state, upon the death of one spouse, leaving legitimate issue living, one-half of the community property descends to such issue and does not vest in the other spouse by right of survivorship. The purchase by the husband in his own name of real property with community funds, while Laws 1875, p. 53, giving the surviving spouse the whole of the community property, and Laws 1873, p. 450, giving the husband the management and disposition of community property, were in force, would not give the husband such a vested right of survivorship in the realty, in its nature proprietary and contractual, as to be beyond the power of the legislature to impair by subsequent legislation. Section 2 of the act of 1875 (Laws 1875, p. 53), giving the surviving spouse a right of survivorship in community property cannot be held as conferring a vested right, since to that extent it would be unconstitutional as not being embraced in the title of the act, which was one “to regulate the descent of real estate and the distribution of personal property.”