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6 Cal. 416

Giblin v. Jordan

California Supreme Court

Decided July 1, 1856

California Supreme Court · decided 1856-07-01

The agreed statement of the case shows that the plaintiff obtained judgment against the defendant, Michael Jordan, on which execution issued to the sheriff, who levied on the interest of the defendant in a certain lot in the city of San Francisco, which had been purchased several years before in the names of the defendant and Judith his wife, and Anna H. Jordan, their infant child ; that about a year before the rendition of the judgment, Michael Jordan had made a deed of…

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1856-07-01

How this case has been cited

Cited by 10 later decisions — most recently September 1942

10 state decisions

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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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The opinion of the Court was delivered by Mr. Chief Justice Murray.

¶1Mr. Justice Heydenfeldt concurred.

¶2In Davis & Wolff v. Eleishacker, we decided that land held by tenants in common was not subject to homestead rights under the laws of this State.

¶3In the present ease, the title of the premises is in the husband, his wife, and child, and inasmuch as the husband is the head of the family, *418and his daughter entitled to claim protection and maintenance from him, it is contended that this case does not fall within the rule established.

¶4We are at a loss to find a distinction. The defendants are as much tenants in common as though they were entire strangers to each other, and the estate of the wife and child cannot be impressed with the character of a homestead simply because they have resided upon the premises.

¶5This case may be a hard one; but it forms no reason why the former decision should be disregarded.

¶6The frequent instances in which Courts have relaxed rules to avoid the consequences of cases like this, have done more to confuse and complicate the law, and destroy its beauty and symmetry, than all other causes put together.

¶7A rule once established and firmly adhered to, may work apparent hardship in a few cases, but in the end will prove more beneficial than if constantly deviated from. Judgment reversed.

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