Katz v. Cohen

DORAN, J. The opponents to the petition for probate of the will of Meyer Katz, deceased, appeal from the judgment and order granting letters testamentary to respondent. The opposition to the petition herein for probate of the will and for letters testamentary is based upon the contention that, at the time of death, deceased was not g resident of the State of California ; and such contention forms the principal basis for the appeal taken herein.

The record reveals that deceased died at St. Louis, Missouri, October 5, 1941. However, it is not disputed that prior to the departure of deceased from California for the last time, late in December, 1940, deceased was a resident of the State of California. The evidence as to the intention of deceased upon leaving California is in conflict. It is not clear from the evidence adduced whether deceased left California with the intention of returning or whether he intended at that time to return to St. Louis, his former home, and settle there. Nor is it clear what intentions deceased formed as to his place of residence at any time after leaving California for the last time in 1940. It appears that at the time deceased left California he was contemplating a business trip to Mexico; that after a brief stay in St. Louis, deceased went on to San Antonio, Texas, where he became seriously ill. Deceased never recovered from this illness. Deceased returned or was taken back to St. Louis, and died there. It is not necessary here to recite all the details of the evidence, including the surrounding circumstances. It is sufficient to state that it appears that the evidence might sustain an inference either for or against the abandonment by deceased of his California residence. Upon this state of facts the court below found that deceased at the time of his death was a resident of the county of Los Angeles, State of California.

[689]Appellants state: “It is far from our purpose to ask this court to weigh the evidence and determine conflicting testimony. On the contrary, we contend that there is no conflict when ordinary rules are fairly applied.” Upon the state of the record here presented, where the evidence supports the findings of the trial court, it is difficult to understand how an appellate court may determine that the ordinary rules were not fairly applied by the court below in arriving at the findings of fact there made; and since findings of fact supported by the evidence must inevitably be held correct, it is equally difficult to understand how a determination that the rules were not properly applied would benefit appellants. In other words, the process of reasoning by which the trial court may have arrived at the findings of fact is not open to review by this court if such findings are supported by the evidence; and if the findings reached by the trial court are correct, appellants cannot be held to have been prejudiced by the process through which the trial court arrived at the findings made.