In April 1958, the Second District considered the relationship between due process, the reasonable exercise of the police power, and the delegation of authority in the context of a section of the Probate Code giving a spouse the right to devise by will one-half of the separate property of the surviving spouse. ( Paley v. Bank of America (1958) 159 Cal.App.2d 500, 502, 324 P.2d 35 ( Paley ).) The court stated:
Where a statute operates unambiguously to deprive a person of a constitutional guarantee, it is invalid, and the courts must so declare. ( Bourland v. Hildreth, supra, 26 Cal. at p. 189; Riley v. Southwest Marine Inc., supra, 203 Cal.App.3d at p. 1258; Paley v. Bank of America (1958) 159 Cal.App.2d 500, 510 [ 324 P.2d 35].) KCERA claims section 31452 must be enforced because article XIV, section 3 of the state Constitution is not self-executing, and is therefore ineffectual except to the extent the Legislature provides for the exercise of the right. ( Borchers Bros. v. Buckeye Incubator Co. (1963) 59 Cal.2d 234, 238-239 [ 28 Cal.Rptr. 697, 379 P.2d 1].) According to KCERA, section 31452 represents a reasonable legislative attempt, pursuant to the constitutional mandate, to balance the "interests of lien claimants and property owners."
. . . It is not the presumption that determines the constitutionality or unconstitutionality of a statute but the fact of its operation and effect in a given case." ( Paley v. Bank of America (1958) 159 Cal.App.2d 500, 506 [ 324 P.2d 35].) (2) The legislative action was "reasonable" in itself, within the meaning of the permissive constitutional language, insofar as its purpose was to require the City's public safety employees to live at places from which they could effectively be called to duty when they were needed.
We have carefully examined the holdings of the courts of California which deal with section 201.5. From them it is clear that section 201.5 does not have the effect of converting property of this nature into community property during the lifetime of the spouses. In Paley v. Bank of America National Trust & Sav. Ass'n., (Cal. Dist. Ct. App., 2d Dist.) 324 P.2d 35, the court stated: While living in the common-law states of Illinois and Pennsylvania, plaintiff acquired substantial personal property.
In the latter case, on rehearing, amendments to a California statute, which thereafter purported to apply California's community property laws to property acquired elsewhere by nondomiciliaries who became California domiciliaries subsequent to the passage of the amendments, were held unconstitutional. A California statute, passed subsequent to the second decision in Thornton, purporting to divest a decedent domiciliary of property acquired elsewhere while a nondomiciliary, and to subject it to community property rights, was held unconstitutional in Paley v. Bank of America Nat. Trust Sav. Assn. ( 159 Cal.App.2d 500 [2d Dist. Ct. App. Div. 1, 1958]). A still later California statute applying quasi-community property rights to personal property acquired elsewhere by nondomiciliaries who subsequently became California domiciliaries, but only as part of State power to control distribution of property in connection with actions for divorce or separate maintenance, was held valid in Addison v. Addison ( 62 Cal.2d 558).