Estate of Edgett

Opinion

COLOGNE, J., Acting P. J.

Elizabeth Catherine Edgett appeals an “Order Overruling Objections to Report of Inheritance Tax Referee.”

1

The facts are not in dispute. Elizabeth married the decedent Robert

[232]

Neil Edgett on August 5, 1939, and obtained a final judgment of dissolution of the marriage in April 1972. The decedent Robert then married an unrelated third party and obtained a final judgment of dissolution from her in June 1973. In July 1976, Elizabeth and Robert began cohabitating again as husband and wife but never remarried. Elizabeth said in the eyes of God she was always married and, while she knew there was not a legal marriage in effect, that was nobody’s business. They did, however, hold themselves out to friends and neighbors as husband and wife, shared a condominium and jointly paid their bills.

In September 1976, Robert executed a will which not only recited the fact he was unmarried but referred to Elizabeth as his “former wife.”

2

That will left the entire estate to her. For tax purposes, the inheritance tax referee treated her as a class C transferee (unrelated person; Rev. & Tax. Code, § 13309)

3

rather than as a class A transferee (wife; § 13307), and fixed the inheritance tax accordingly. Elizabeth contends she was entitled to treatment as a class A transferee because she enjoyed a spousal-like relationship with Robert.

California does not accept the doctrine of common law marriage abolished in California by statute in 1895 (see

Norman

v.

Thomson

(1898) 121 Cal. 620, 628 [52 P. 1077];

Estate of Abate

(1958) 166 Cal.App.2d 282, 292 [333 P.2d 200]). While the courts have been willing to grant certain relief to a man or woman living in an unmarried state by enforcing an agreement between them and providing equitable relief, they have consistently refused to equate the nonmarital relationship to a lawful marriage (see