G.R. No.

L-16749 January 31, 1963

IN THE MATTER OF THE TESTATE ESTATE OF EDWARD E. CHRISTENSEN,

LABRADOR, J.:

FACTS: EDWARD Christensen died testate. The estate was distributed by Executioner Aznar
according to the will, which provides that: Php 3,600 be given to HELEN Christensen as her
legacy, and the rest of his estate to his daughter LUCY Christensen, as pronounced by CFI
Davao.
Opposition to the approval of the project of partition was filed by Helen, insofar as it deprives
her of her legitime as an acknowledged natural child, she having been declared by Us an
acknowledged natural child of the deceased Edward in an earlier case.

As to his citizenship, we find that the citizenship that he acquired in California when he resided
in Sacramento from 1904 to 1913, was never lost by his stay in the Philippines, and the deceased
appears to have considered himself as a citizen of California by the fact that when he executed
his will he declared that he was a citizen of that State; so that he appears never to have intended
to abandon his California citizenship by acquiring another. But at the time of his death, he was
domiciled in the Philippines.

ISSUE: what law on succession should apply, the Philippine law or the California law?
HELD: WHEREFORE, the decision appealed from is hereby reversed and the case returned to
the lower court with instructions that the partition be made as the Philippine law on succession
provides.
The law that governs the validity of his testamentary dispositions is defined in Article 16 of the
Civil Code of the Philippines, which is as follows:

ART. 16. Real property as well as personal property is subject to the law of the country where it
is situated.

However, intestate and testamentary successions, both with respect to the order of succession
and to the amount of successional rights and to the intrinsic validity of testamentary provisions,
shall be regulated by the national law of the person whose succession is under consideration,
whatever may be the nature of the property and regardless of the country where said property
may be found.

The application of this article in the case at bar requires the determination of the meaning of the
term “national law” is used therein.
The next question is: What is the law in California governing the disposition of personal
property?
The decision of CFI Davao, sustains the contention of the executor-appellee that under the
California Probate Code, a testator may dispose of his property by will in the form and manner
he desires. But HELEN invokes the provisions of Article 946 of the Civil Code of California,
which is as follows:

If there is no law to the contrary, in the place where personal property is situated, it is deemed to
follow the person of its owner, and is governed by the law of his domicile.

It is argued on executor’s behalf that as the deceased Christensen was a citizen of the State of
California, the internal law thereof, which is that given in the Kaufman case, should govern the
determination of the validity of the testamentary provisions of Christensen’s will, such law being
in force in the State of California of which Christensen was a citizen. Appellant, on the other
hand, insists that Article 946 should be applicable, and in accordance therewith and following the
doctrine of the renvoi, the question of the validity of the testamentary provision in question
should be referred back to the law of the decedent’s domicile, which is the Philippines.

We note that Article 946 of the California Civil Code is its conflict of laws rule, while the rule
applied in In re Kaufman, its internal law. If the law on succ ession and the conflict of laws rules
of California are to be enforced jointly, each in its own intended and appropriate sphere, the
principle cited In re Kaufman should apply to citizens living in the State, but Article 946 should
apply to such of its citizens as are not domiciled in California but in other jurisdictions. The rule
laid down of resorting to the law of the domicile in the determination of matters with foreign
element involved is in accord with the general principle of American law that the domiciliary
law should govern in most matters or rights which follow the person of the owner.

Appellees argue that what Article 16 of the Civil Code of the Philippines pointed out as the
national law is the internal law of California. But as above explained the laws of California have
prescribed two sets of laws for its citizens, one for residents therein and another for those
domiciled in other jurisdictions.

It is argued on appellees’ (Aznar and LUCY) behalf that the clause “if there is no law to the
contrary in the place where the property is situated” in Sec. 946 of the California Civil Code
refers to Article 16 of the Civil Code of the Philippines and that the law to the contrary in the
Philippines is the provision in said Article 16 that the national law of the deceased should
govern. This contention can not be sustained.

As explained in the various authorities cited above, the national law mentioned in Article 16 of
our Civil Code is the law on conflict of laws in the California Civil Code, i.e., Article 946, which
authorizes the reference or return of the question to the law of the testator’s domicile. The
conflict of laws rule in California, Article 946, Civil Code, precisely refers back the case, when a
decedent is not domiciled in California, to the law of his domicile, the Philippines in the case at
bar. The court of the domicile can not and should not refer the case back to California; such
action would leave the issue incapable of determination because the case will then be like a
football, tossed back and forth between the two states, between the country of which the
decedent was a citizen and the country of his domicile. The Philippine court must apply its own
law as directed in the conflict of laws rule of the state of the decedent, if the question has to be
decided, especially as the application of the internal law of California provides no legitime for
children while the Philippine law, Arts. 887(4) and 894, Civil Code of the Philippines, makes
natural children legally acknowledged forced heirs of the parent recognizing them.

We therefore find that as the domicile of the deceased Edward, a citizen of California, is the
Philippines, the validity of the provisions of his will depriving his acknowledged natural child,
the appellant HELEN, should be governed by the Philippine Law, the domicile, pursuant to Art.
946 of the Civil Code of California, not by the internal law of California..

NOTES: There is no single American law governing the validity of testamentary provisions in
the United States, each state of the Union having its own private law applicable to its citizens
only and in force only within the state. The “national law” indicated in Article 16 of the Civil
Code above quoted can not, therefore, possibly mean or apply to any general American law. So it
can refer to no other than the private law of the State of California.