Opinion
Docket No. 12503.
April 19, 1940.
APPEAL from an order of the Superior Court of Los Angeles County directing distribution of an estate. Jess E. Stephens, Judge. Affirmed.
The facts are stated in the opinion of the court.
Carrie Levi, in pro. per., for Appellant.
Loeb Loeb, Walter S. Hilborn and Herman F. Selvin for Respondent.
This appeal transferred from the Supreme Court to this court for decision pursuant to article VI, section 4c, of the Constitution of the State of California, is on the judgment roll alone from an order of the probate court holding that respondent, a charitable organization, is entitled to receive a part of the estate of decedent as a distributee.
This is the sole question to be determined:
[1] Was there substantial evidence to sustain the trial court's finding "that the decedent left her surviving no spouse, brother, sister, nephew, niece, descendant, or ancestor?
This question must be answered in the affirmative. The law is established in California that, where the appeal is on the judgment roll alone, the findings will be conclusively presumed to be supported by the evidence. ( Estate of Woods, 23 Cal.App. (2d) 187, 191 [ 72 P.2d 258].) In the case just cited Mr. Justice Wood, speaking for this court at page 191, thus accurately states the rule:
"Since the appeal is on the judgment roll alone the findings are conclusively presumed to be supported by the evidence; they are to receive, if possible, such a construction as will uphold rather than defeat the order of the court; they must be liberally construed and any ambiguity or inconsistency must be resolved in favor of sustaining the order. On such an appeal every presumption and intendment is resolved in favor of the regularity of the proceedings in the trial court. The order of the court will not be reversed except for some fatal error appearing on the face of the judgment roll."
Even if we assume for the purpose of argument that the document filed by appellant Carrie Levi entitled "statement of Carrie Levi as a qualifying distributee" is a pleading, we must, since the appeal is on the judgment roll alone, assume that the trial court received evidence contrary to the statements in such document, which evidence would support the trial court's findings. ( Berri v. Rogero, 168 Cal. 736, 741 [ 145 P. 95].)
Therefore, applying the foregoing rules to the facts of the instant case, since the appeal is on the judgment roll alone, the finding above set forth is conclusively presumed to be supported by evidence, and since no error appears on the face of the judgment roll, the judgment must be affirmed.
The order appealed from is affirmed.
Moore, P.J., concurred.
A petition by appellant to have the cause heard in the Supreme Court, after judgment in the District Court of Appeal, was denied by the Supreme Court on June 17, 1940.