McAllister v. Fair

• Decision Date: 06 January 1906
• Docket Number: 14,161
• Citation: 84 P. 112,72 Kan. 533
• Parties: MOLLIE MCALLISTER et al. v. J. P. FAIR, as Administrator, etc., et al
• Court: Kansas Supreme Court

84 P. 112

72 Kan. 533

MOLLIE MCALLISTER et al. v. J. P. FAIR, as Administrator, etc., et al

No. 14,161

Supreme Court of Kansas

January 6, 1906

Decided January, 1906.

Error from Jewell district court; RICHARD M. PICKLER, judge.

Judgment affirmed.

SYLLABUS

SYLLABUS BY THE COURT.

DESCENTS AND DISTRIBUTIONS--Murder of Ancestor by Heir--Statutory Construction. The power to declare the rule for the descent of property is vested in the legislature; and where it has provided in plain and peremptory language that a husband shall inherit from his deceased wife, and no exception is made on account of criminal conduct, the court is not justified in reading into the statute a clause disinheriting a husband because he feloniously killed his intestate wife for the purpose of acquiring her property.

R. W. Turner, for plaintiffs in error.

W. S. Canan, W. R. Mitchell, and S. H. Allen, for defendants in error.

JOHNSTON C. J. All the Justices concurring.

OPINION

JOHNSTON, C. J.

This was a proceeding begun in the probate court to obtain a distribution of the estate of Kate Brandt. She was killed by her husband on March 14, 1903, for the purpose of obtaining her property, and in a prosecution for the offense he was convicted of murder in the first degree and is now imprisoned in the penitentiary under a death sentence. She had no children, and under ordinary and normal circumstances her husband would inherit her estate. She left a personal estate said to be worth about $ 1000, and the husband assigned and transferred his interest in it to G. A. Bailey, the attorney who defended him against the criminal charge. Her brothers and sisters, the nearest blood relatives living, claimed the estate, alleging that the husband's crime disabled him from taking any interest in it. In the probate court, and also in the district court, to which the case was appealed, it was held that the husband was the only heir of his deceased wife; that her estate descended to him; and that Bailey was entitled to it under the assignment.

The plaintiffs complain, and insist that a murderer should not be permitted to inherit the estate of his victim. The descent and devolution of property is regulated by statute. Section 2521 of the General Statutes of 1901 provides: "If the intestate leave no issue, the whole of his estate shall go to his wife; and if he leave no wife nor issue, the whole of his estate shall go to his parents. " Section 2529 provides: "All the provisions hereinbefore made in relation to the widow of a deceased husband, shall be applicable to the husband of a deceased wife. Each is entitled to the same rights or portion in the estate of the other, and like interests shall in the same manner descend to their respective heirs." Section 2532 provides that "the personal property of the deceased not necessary for the payment of debts, nor otherwise disposed of according to law, shall be distributed to the same persons and in the same proportions as though it were real estate." It is conceded that the statute is general and inclusive in its terms, but it is said to be inconceivable that the legislature intended to give an estate to a husband who murdered his wife to obtain it. It is argued that the letter of a statute should not prevail over its sense and spirit, and that a literal interpretation of the statute in question would in effect be giving property as a reward for crime. It is said that the legislature is presumed to have enacted the statute in question having in view the maxims of the common law that no man shall take advantage of his own wrong, or acquire property by his own crime, or use the law to accomplish his unlawful purposes, and, therefore, that the courts are justified in imputing a different intention to the legislature and excepting murderers from the operation of the statute.

These considerations would have great weight if there were ambiguity in the statute, or if it were the province of the court to settle the policy of the state with respect to the descent of property or as to the character and extent of punishment which should be inflicted for the commission of crime. That any one should be given property as the result of his crime is abhorrent to the mind of every right-thinking person, and is a strong reason why the lawmakers, in fixing the rules of inheritance and prescribing punishment for felonious homicide, should provide that no person, shall inherit property from one whose life he has feloniously taken. A statute of this character has been enacted in at least one state. (Iowa Code, 1897, § 3386; Kuhn v. Kuhn, 125 Iowa 449, 101 N.W. 151.) The horror and repulsion caused by such an atrocity, however, do not warrant the court in reading into a plain statutory provision an exception which the statute itself in no way suggests. If the statute were of doubtful meaning and open to two constructions there might be room to infer that the legislature intended the one which would be most reasonable and just in its application. As will be observed, however, the rule of inheritance is explicit, and the statute contains no hint that any one is to be excluded on account of misconduct or crime.

In Ayers v. Comm'rs of Trego Co., 37 Kan. 240, 15 P. 229, the court was asked to read into a statute a meaning which its words did not import, and the reply was made: "We have not the right to change the statute where it is clear and free from ambiguity, by any judicial interpretation." In the recent case of Railway Co. v. Grain Co., 68 Kan. 585, 75 P. 1051, it was held that the fraud and misconduct of one party which prevented another from bringing an action did not create an implied exception to the statute of limitations; that, the legislature having made no exception on that ground, none could be made by the courts; that it was the duty of the courts to administer the law regardless of particular cases of hardship; that the function of changing a law because it works unjustly or oppressively belongs to the legislature, and for a court to engraft an exception upon a statute would be judicial legislation.

The argument that a literal interpretation of the statute would in effect encourage crime and contravene public policy is no reason why the courts should disregard a plain statutory provision, nor would it justify them in determining the policy of the state upon the question. The right to determine what is the best policy for the people is in the legislature, and courts cannot assume that they have a wisdom superior to that of the legislature and proceed to inject into a statute a clause which, in their opinion, would be more in consonance with good morals or better accomplish justice than the rule declared by the legislature. It has been said that "the well-considered cases warrant the pertinent conclusion that when the legislature, not transcending the limits of its power, speaks in clear language upon a question of policy, it becomes the judicial tribunals to remain silent." ( Malinda Deem et al. v. Thomas Millikin et al., 6 Ohio C.C. 357, 360.)

The statute makes nearness of relationship to the decedent, and not the character or conduct of the heir, the controlling factor as to the right of inheritance. Besides, the penalties for felonious homicides are definitely prescribed in another statute, and the loss of the inheritable quality or the forfeiture of an estate is not among them. If the court should hold that the loss of heirship and the forfeiture of an estate were a consequence of Brandt's crime, it would have to ignore the legislative rule governing the descent of property, and would, in effect, impose a punishment for his crime in addition to that prescribed by the only body authorized to declare penalties for violations of law. Nor is it easy to attribute to the legislature an intention to take from a criminal the right to inherit as a consequence of his crime, since the constitution provides that no conviction shall work a corruption of blood or forfeiture of estate. (Bill of Rights, § 12; Gen. Stat. 1901, § 94.)

The cases relied on by plaintiffs in error as authorities against the right to inherit are those involving insurance policies, wills, and the like. (Riggs et al. v. Palmer et al., 115 N.Y. 506, 22 N.E. 188, 5 L. R. A. 340, 12 Am. St. Rep. 819; Ellerson v. Westcott, 148 N.Y. 149, 42 N.E. 540; Lundy v. Lundy, 24 Can. S.C. 650; N.Y. Life Ins. Co. v. Armstrong, 117 U.S. 591, 6 S.Ct. 877, 29 L.Ed. 997; Schmidt v. Northern L. Asso., 112 Iowa 41, 83 N.W. 800, 51 L. R. A. 141, 84 Am. St. Rep. 323; Box v. Lanier, 112 Tenn. 393, 79 S.W. 1042, 64 L. R. A. 458.)

There is a manifest difference, however, between private grants conveyances and contracts of individuals and a public act of the legislature. It might be...