Enos v. Hamblen

Citations

• 79 Wash. 583
• 140 P. 675

Syllabus

<p>Jury — Right to Jury Trial — Administration op Estate — Equity or Law. A petition in probate, whereby the petitioner seeks to establish her right to a community interest in the estate of the deceased as his lawful wife, does not raise an issue of fact in an action for the recovery of money or specific real or personal property, required by Rem. & Bal. Code, § 314, to be tried by a jury; but is an equitable proceeding, within Id., § 315, requiring every other issue of fact to be tried by the court, subject to the right to an advisory verdict by a jury when consented' to or ordered.</p> <p>■Same — Jury in Trial by Court — Advisory Verdict. In the trial of an issue of fact in an equitable proceeding, such as the establishment in probate of the right of a wife to a community interest in the estate of the deceased, the taking of a verdict of a jury upon an issue as to a lawful marriage is discretionary, and the verdict advisory only and not binding on the court.</p> <p>Mabeiase — Evidence—Sufficiency. The evidence is insufficient to establish a marriage between an Indian woman and a white man, since deceased', where she claimed that, when she was about 14 years of age, the marriage was consummated according to the Indian custom, and that she lived with deceased for nine years upon a ranch in Lincoln county, but other evidence conclusively shows that, for several years after the time fixed, deceased was not in that country and never lived there for any length of time, and that the claimant had1 another husband during those times, and had claimed an interest in his estate as his widow.</p>