Opinion
Docket No. S.F. 21871.
August 2, 1966.
APPEAL from a judgment of the Superior Court of the City and County of San Francisco determining rights of nonresident aliens to inherit. William F. Traverso, Judge. Affirmed.
Thomas C. Lynch, Attorney General, Elizabeth Miller and Ralph W. Scott, Deputy Attorneys General, for Objector and Appellant.
Garry, Dreyfus McTernan and Francis J. McTernan for Claimants and Respondents.
MEMORANDUM CASE
This case raises the same issue as that posed in Estate of Larkin, ante, p. 60 [ 52 Cal.Rptr. 441, 416 P.2d 473] and is controlled by our decision in that case. Accordingly, we affirm the judgment of the trial court entered pursuant to its finding that the Soviet Union extends reciprocal inheritance rights to our citizens.
The Attorney General seeks to distinguish the present case by noting that the beneficiaries here involved are residents of the Armenian Republic of the U.S.S.R. He contends that the record in Larkin is insufficient to support a finding of reciprocity with the Armenian Republic because the text of Article 8 which was introduced in that case was taken from the code of the R.S.F.S.R.
The record refutes the Attorney General's contention. All of the experts whose testimony was received in Larkin, including the expert called by the Attorney General, stated that the codes of all of the Soviet Republics incorporate the provisions of Article 8. (See also 1 Gsovski, Soviet Civil Law (1948) 354; Ginsburgs, Inheritance by Foreigners Under Soviet Law (1965) 51 Iowa L.Rev. 16, 21.)
Traynor, C.J., Peters, J., Peek, J., Burke, J., and Schauer, J., concurred.
Retired Associate Justice of the Supreme Court sitting under assignment by the Chairman of the Judicial Council.
Appellant's petition for a rehearing was denied August 31, 1966. Schauer, J.,fn_ sat in place of Mosk, J., who deemed himself disqualified. McComb, J., was of the opinion that the petition should be granted.