Henderson v. Pence
| Decision Date | 08 November 1967 |
| Docket Number | No. 4589,4589 |
| Parties | Ann Seder HENDERSON v. Martin PENCE and Cooke Trust Company, Ltd., Co-Executors of the Estate of Gaelic Lee Seder, Deceased. |
| Court | Hawaii Supreme Court |
Syllabus by the Court
1. Where an order admitting a will to probate contains no finding as to the decedent's domicile, that order will not bar a declaratory judgment action to determine the decedent's domicile.
2. Although an order admitting a will to probate is in the nature of a judgment in rem, it is not conclusive as to a fact upon which it is based except as to persons who actually litigated the issue.
3. An order denying a motion to vacate probate for lack of jurisdiction which does not contain a finding as to the decedent's domicile and which does not require such a finding for denial to be valid, does not bar litigation of the issue of domicile in an action for a declaratory judgment.
Kenneth E. Young, Honolulu (Louis Le Baron, Honolulu, with him on the briefs), for plaintiff-appellant.
Roy K. Nakamoto, Ushijima, Nakamoto & Yuda, Hilo, for defendants-appellees.
Before RICHARDSON, C. J., and MIZUHA, MARUMOTO, ABE and LEVINSON, JJ.
On February 11, 1966, the appellant filed a complaint seeking a declaratory judgment that her mother was domiciled in California at the time of her death. The appellees, co-executors under her mother's will, moved to dismiss the complaint or for summary judgment. The appellees' attorney submitted an affidavit alleging that he believes that the probate court in Hawaii, in admitting the will to probate, made oral findings establishing the domicile of the decedent in Hawaii at the time of her death. The affidavit also alleges that an order admitting the will to probate for ancillary proceedings in California decided that the decedent was a Hawaiian domiciliary. It also alleges that the appellant specifically raised the issue of the decedent's domicile in her motion on December 7, 1964 to vacate the order of probate in Hawaii for lack of jurisdiction, and that the probate court in Hawaii decided it adversely to the appellant in denying the motion.
On May 13, 1966, the trial court granted summary judgment for the appellees on the grounds that the issue was res judicata, that the action constituted a collateral attack on the judgments of the probate courts of Hawaii and California, that there was no issue of material fact to be determined, and that the appellees were entitled to judgment as a matter of law.
We reverse. The prior decisions in the various probate proceedings do not support the trial court's conclusion that the issue raised in the present action was finally determined in another action.
The trial court failed to distinguish between the doctrine of res judicata and collateral estoppel. The former precludes a second suit based on the same cause of action involved in a prior suit between the same parties or their privies, Territory v. Howell, 25 Haw. 320, 322 (1920). The latter precludes relitigation of a fact or issue previously determined or which could have been determined in a suit on a different cause of action between the same parties or their privies, Yuen v. London Guar. & Accident Co., 40 Haw. 213, 223 (1953). The issue involved in the present action is the same issue allegedly involved in the probate proceedings in Hawaii and Galifornia, but the causes of action, the legal consequences from a determination in the various cases, are different.
The order admitting the will to probate in Hawaii does not purport to make any finding on the issue of the decedent's domicile. Such a finding is unnecessary to the court's jurisdiction to probate the will, R.L.H.1955, 317-6, 1 and we will not imply such a finding to preclude a party from asserting his rights. Oral findings, if any were made by the probate court, are ineffectual.
A final judgment of a court in a sister state must be accorded full faith and credit under the United States Constitution despite errors in interpretation of the law of another state, Fauntleroy v. Lum, 210 U.S. 230, 28 S.Ct. 641, 52 L.Ed. 1039 (1908). The appellee correctly...
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