Updegraff v. Trask

Decided July 1, 1861

California Supreme Court · decided 1861-07-01

Ejectment. The complaint, filed in June, 1861, alleges that plaintiff is sole, heir of one Updegraff, who died in 1858 seized of certain mining claims; that there are no outstanding debts against •the estate, and therefore that there is no necessity for-any administrator ; and that defendant has wrongfully entered, etc. Defendant filed a general demurrer. Overruled, and final judgment for plaintiff. Defendant appeals.

Relies on Beckett v. Selover

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1861-07-01

How this case has been cited

Cited by 8 later decisions — most recently March 1922

8 state decisions

Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

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Baldwin J. delivered the opinion of the Court.

¶1Cope, J. concurring.

¶2The principal question in this case is, whether the heir can maintain ejectment for realty left by the ancestor, a considerable period elapsing after the. death, and no administration having been taken on the estate and there being no debts.

¶3We think, independent of other qualification than the fact that no administration exists upon the estate, that the heir may maintain this action. He has a right of entry, subject only to the claim of the administrator, when there is one. This follows from his general title cast by the descent, which is only qualified by the particular statutory right given the administrator. (See Beckett v. Selover, 7 Cal. 216; see also Bufford v. Holliman, 10 Texas, 564, where the subject is fully discussed under a not dissimilar statute of that State.)

¶4It is not necessary to notice other points.

¶5Judgment affirmed.