Garwols v. Bankers' Trust Co.

• Decision Date: 03 October 1930
• Docket Number: No. 120.,120.
• Citation: 232 N.W. 239,251 Mich. 420
• Parties: GARWOLS (Garwols et al., Interveners) v. BANKERS' TRUST CO. et al.
• Court: Michigan Supreme Court

251 Mich. 420

232 N.W. 239

GARWOLS (Garwols et al., Interveners)

v.BANKERS' TRUST CO. et al.

No. 120.

Supreme Court of Michigan.

Oct. 3, 1930.

Appeal from Circuit Court, Genesee County, in Chancery; James S. Parker, Judge.

Suit by George Garwols against the Bankers' Trust Company, as administrator of the estate of Nancy Garwols, deceased, and another, in which Hannah Garwols and another intervened. From a decree dismissing their bill of complaint, intervening plaintiffs appeal.

Reversed and rendered.

Argued before WIEST, C. J., and BUTZEL, CLARK, McDONALD, POTTER, SHARPE, NORTH, and FEAD, JJ. Wilson & Hoffman, of Flint, for appellants.

Cook, Sheppard & Stipes and Horace P. Martin, all of Flint, for appellees.

SHARPE, J.

The intervening plaintiffs, Hannah Garwols and Jennie Scott, hereafter called the plaintiffs, appeal from a decree dismissing their bill of complaint. The allegations therein may be summarized as follows:

The plaintiffs are sisters of Nancy Garwols, the divorced wife of George Garwols. Prior to her marriage, she gave birth to an illegitimate son, the defendant Harry McClennan. This son became enamored of a woman whom he desired to marry, but who was unwilling to become his wife because of his poverty. In order to secure the property owned by his mother, and to which he was the sole heir, Harry deliberately murdered her. He was apprehended, and, on being brought to trial, pleaded guilty to the charge and was sentenced to life imprisonment in the branch state prison at Marquette, where he is now confined. The defendant trust company was appointed administrator of the mother's estate, and is threatening to turn over to Harry, as the only heir at law of the deceased, the property in its hands, amounting to about $15,000.

The question presented is thus stated by plaintiffs' counsel: ‘Can an illegitimate child, who murdered his mother for the purpose of securing his inheritance, be let into the inheritance under the statutes of descent?’

The trial court, after referring to the statute (3 Comp. Laws 1915, § 11796), which provides that ‘every illegitimate child shall be considered as an heir of his mother, and shall inherit her estate, in like manner as if born in lawful wedlock,’ said: ‘The theory of preventing a murderer from reaping the benefit resulting from his crime appeals to the court's sense of justice. The legislature, however, having power to declare a rule of descent and having done so in clear and unequivocal language, leaves in this court no discretion.’

No such case has ever been presented to this court. The question is a new one. That the son is illegitimate in no way affects it. The deceased might have disposed of her property as she saw fit. This son had no legal claim upon it. He sought to secure it to himself by deliberately taking the life of his mother. This act and its motive so shock our sense of justice that we should give most careful thought to the considerations urged as a reason why he should not be permitted to inherit.

In California, Kansas, Iowa, and Oklahoma, the right of an heir to take under such circumstances is denied by statute. We have no such provision in our statute. It is plain and unambiguous, and, unless it can be demonstrated to a reasonable certainty that our Legislature presumably intended to bar an heir who deliberately takes the life of his ancestor for the purpose of securing the estate, we must affirm the decree, as courts under our Constitution have no power to legislate.

In the Schedule annexed to our State Constitution it is declared that ‘the common law and the statute laws now in force, not repugnant to this constitution, shall remain in force until they expire by their own limitations, or are altered or repealed.’ Section 1.

In 12 C. J. p. 178, it is said: ‘The unwritten or common law is the embodiment of principles and rules inspired by natural reason, an innate sense of justice, and the dictates of convenience, and voluntarily adopted by men for their government in social relations. The authority of its rules does not depend on positive legislative enactment, but on general reception and usage, and the tendency of the rules to accomplish the ends of justice.’

This court has on many occasions applied the rules of the common law in cases before it when the matter in dispute was not specifically controlled by a constitutional or statutory provision. These rules are firmly embedded in our jurisprudence, and it is presumed that the Legislature had them in mind when enacting statutes. Endlich, Interpretation of Statutes, § 127. Chancellor Kent in his Commentaries (vol. 1,464) says: ‘Statutes are likewise to be construed in reference to the principles of the common law; for it is not to be presumed that the legislature intended to make any innovation upon the common law, further than the case absolutely required. This has been the language of the courts in every age; and when we consider the constant, vehement, and exalted eulogy which the ancient sages bestowed upon the common law as the perfection of reason, and the best birthright and noblest inheritance of the subject, we cannot be surprised at the great sanction given to this rule of construction.’

And: ‘If by interpretation they’ (the common law and the statutes) ‘may stand together, they shall so stand.’ Smith's Commentaries, p. 879, § 757.

In Bandfield v. Bandfield, 117 Mich. 80, 82, 75 N. W. 287, 288,40 L. R. A. 757, 72 Am. St. Rep. 550, the following from 9 Bac. Abr. tit. ‘Statute,’ I (4), 245, was quoted with approval: ‘In all doubtful matters, and when the expression is in general terms, statutes are to receive such a construction as may be agreeable to the rules of the common law in cases of that nature; for statutes are not presumed to make any alteration of the common law, further or otherwise than the act expressly declares. Therefore, in all general matters the law presumes the act did not intend to make any alteration; for, if the parliament had that design, they should have expressed it in the act.’

In our early case of Wales v. Lyon, 2 Mich. 276, 282, it was said: ‘Statutes are to be construed in reference to the common law, and it is never to be presumed that the Legislature intended to make any innovation upon the common law any further than the case absolutely required in order to carry the act into effect. * * * And if the apparent meaning of a statute is opposed to well settled general principles it should be restrained or enlarged so as to conform to such general principles. * * * This is the only safe rule to adopt in the construction of statutes.’

In People ex rel. Whipple v. Judge of Saginaw Circuit, 26 Mich. 342, this court was called upon to construe the statute providing for the transfer of causes in cases wherein the ciucuit judge was disqualified from acting. It was said (page 345 of 26 Mich.): ‘By the fundamental principles of the common law, no man could be judge in his own case; and no statute was needed to declare this principle.’ And the act was construed as though the common-law disqualification was written into it.

In Crane v. Reeder, 21 Mich. 24, page 66,4 Am. Rep. 430, the court said: ‘It is implied in all statutes that they shall be read in accordance with the recognized rules of interpretation, and apply to such persons or things as fall naturally within their scope. It is not customary in passing acts to express such disabilities as should be implied.’

‘For there is no such thing as a natural line of inheritance independent of the law.’ Page 73 of 21 Mich., 4 Am. Rep. 430.

It was held that aliens could not inherit because of a common-law disability which had not been removed by statute.

Out statute of limitations contains no exceptions, and yet the courts create them in cases of fraudulent concealment of the cause of action.

Under the common law, an illegitimate child was not entitled to inherit. This disability has been removed by our statute, and the right of the son here to take is the same as though he had been born in lawful wedlock. But among the fundamental legal principles of the common law was the maxim that ‘no man shall take advantage of his own wrong,’ Broom, Legal Maxims, 209, or, as stated by this court in Kiplinger v. Green, 61 Mich. 340, 347, 28 N. W. 121, 123,1 Am. St. Rep. 584, ‘He cannot profit by his own wrong.’ This maxim or legal principle is firmly embedded in our jurisprudence, and it is to be presumed that our Legislature at all times had it in mind. There is no presumption of its repeal. Endlich, Interpretation of Statutes, § 127; Bishop on Written Laws, § 142.

This court has also said that a statute ‘must be construed with reference not only to its language, but its object as gathered from its various parts,’ Washburn v. People, 10 Mich. 372, 384, quoted approvingly in Hatch v. Calhoun Circuit Judge, 127 Mich. 174, 176, 86 N. W. 518; and that ‘it is a familiar principle of law that, in construing a statute, we must consider the occasion of its enactment and the purpose to be accomplished,’ Bennett v. Michigan Pulpwood Co., 181 Mich. 33, 40, 147 N. W. 490, 492.

The object of the statute of descent and distribution is to provide for the devolution of estates of persons dying intestate among those whom the Legislature conceived to be the natural objects of the bounty of the deceased. It may well be said ‘to be founded on the great principles of justice, with the object of making such a will for the intestate as he would himself probably make, its obvious policy being to follow the lead of the natural affections, and to consider as most worthy the claims of those who stand nearest to the affections of the last occupant.’ 9 R. C. L. p. 12.

In the enactment of this law it was unnecessary for the Legislature to contemplate that an emergency such as is here presented should arise concerning which provision should be made. The omission to so foresee and to provide therefor cannot be presumed to work a repeal of the...