Jue v. San Tong Jue

DORAN, J. This is an appeal from a judgment sustaining the demurrer without leave to amend.

Jue Joe, the father, and San Tong Jue, the son, were in the wholesale produce business. The business was extensive and alleged to be valued at several hundred thousand dollars. [658]According to the record, upon the father’s death the son took over the business. As stated in appellants’ brief and alleged in substance:

“Upon the death of Jue Joe, said San Tong Jue held a dominating and influential position with the surviving members of the Jue Joe family; they being female, respected him and his judgment and placed and reposed great confidence and trust in him and in his word and conduct in relation to the Estate of Jue Joe, deceased. Said San Tong Jue coveted the entire estate of Jue Joe, deceased, sought to obtain possession of and title to the same, to the total exclusion of all other heirs of Jue Joe, deceased. To accomplish this, on the day of Jue Joe’s death, San Tong Jue, not having access to his father’s safety deposit box in the bank with which Jue Joe had carried on his banking business, took his two sisters who did have joint access to said box, and without disclosing to the bank the fact of his father’s death, obtained possession of the contents of said box which included the decedent’s last Will and Testament that had been prepared by plaintiff, Rush M. Blodget and executed under Mr. Blodget’s direction. In order to prevent probate administration of said decedent’s estate, defendant San Tong Jue concealed the Will and instructed his sisters never to disclose to anyone that he had obtained possession of it or that it, in fact, existed. He succeeded in concealing the Will and the fact of its existence, from the County Clerk, from the Executor therein named, plaintiff Rush M. Blodget, and all other interested persons, for a period of ten years, at which time one of the sisters disclosed the foregoing facts to her counsel and as a result, defendant was compelled to deliver the Will to court, same was admitted to probate and Rush M. Blodget was appointed and duly qualified as Executor thereof.

“In furtherance of said defendant’s plan to appropriate all of the assets of the decedent, to the exclusion of the other heirs-at-law, the defendant San Tong Jue approached his sister, the plaintiff Dorothy Jue Moe, and under threat of death, procured a deed from her to property in Tulare County which had been given to her by her father, the decedent Jue Joe, as a gift during his lifetime, and had been paid for by her father out of his earnings in the Jue Joe Company.