Estate of Newman

Opinion

DAVIS, J.

This appeal involves the application of the so-called in-law inheritance statute, former Probate Code section 229, 1 to the distribution of the estate of Jess Stanley Newman, who died on July 29, 1983. Cecil C. Finn, a nephew of Jess’s predeceased wife Frances Elizabeth Newman, filed a petition alleging Jess’s entire probate estate should go to Frances’s blood relatives pursuant to section 229, subdivision (b)(5). The estate consists entirely of real property originally acquired by Frances as her separate property by deed from her mother. The trial court found Frances’s former…