PRIL - 16

IN THE MATTER OF THE ESTATE OF EMIL H. JOHNSON1

FACTS2:

Emil H. Johnson was born in Sweden, May 25, 1877. He emigrated to the United States and lived in
Chicago, from 1893 to 1898. On May 9, 1898, at Chicago, he was married to Rosalie Ackeson, and
immediately thereafter embarked for the Philippine Islands as a soldier in the Army of the United States.
As a result of relations between Johnson and Rosalie Ackeson a daughter, named Ebba Ingeborg, was
born.

After Johnson was discharged as a soldier he continued to live in the Philippines, and on November 20,
1902, the wife, Rosalie Johnson, was granted a decree of divorce from him in the Circuit Court of Cook
County, Illinois, on the ground of desertion. A little later Johnson appeared in the United States on a visit
and on January 10, 1903, procured a certificate of naturalization at Chicago, thus became a naturalized
citizen of the United States. From Chicago he appears to have gone to Sweden. When this visit was
concluded, the deceased returned to Manila, where he prospered in business and continued to live until
his death.

In this city he married Alejandra Ibañez, by whom he had three children, to wit, Mercedes, baptized May
31, 1903; Encarnacion, baptized April 29, 1906; and Victor, baptized December 9, 1907. The other two
children mentioned in the will were borne to the deceased by Simeona Ibañez.

He died on February 4, 1916 in the city of Manila, leaving a will, dated September 9, 1915. This
document is a holographic instrument, being written in the testator's own handwriting, and is signed by
himself and two witnesses only, instead of three witnesses. This will, therefore, was not executed in
conformity with the provisions of law generally applicable to wills executed by inhabitants of these
Islands.

In the will, testator gives to his brother Victor one hundred shares of the corporate stock in the Johnson-
Pickett Rope Company; to his father and mother in Sweden, the sum of P20,000; to his daughter Ebba
Ingeborg, the sum of P5,000; to his wife, Alejandra Ibañez, the sum of P75 per month, if she remains
single; to Simeona Ibañez, spinster, P65 per month, if she remains single. The rest of the property is left
to the testator's five children — Mercedes, Encarnacion, Victor, Eleonor and Alberto.

A petition was presented in the Court of First Instance of the city of Manila for the probate of this will,
on the ground that Johnson was at the time of his death a citizen of the State of Illinois, United States of
America; that the will was duly executed in accordance with the laws of that State; and hence could
properly be probated here pursuant to section 636 of the Code of Civil Procedure. This section reads as
follows:

Will made here by alien. — A will made within the Philippine Islands by a citizen or subject of
another state or country, which is executed in accordance with the law of the state or country of
which he is a citizen or subject, and which might be proved and allowed by the law of his own

1
Please read discussion on the Court’s ruling for the doctrines.
2
I know it’s long, sorry, pero from what I was told, this is one of few cases thoroughly discussed in class.
 state or country, may be proved, allowed, and recorded in the Philippine Islands, and shall have
the same effect as if executed according to the laws of these Islands.

The petition for probate was granted. About three months after the will had been probated attorneys
for Ebba Ingeborg Johnson entered an appearance in her behalf and noted an exception to the other
admitting the will to probate. Thus this petition was filed to annul the decree of probate and put the
estate into intestate administration, preparing the way for the establishment of the claim of the
petitioner as the sole legitimate heir of her father.

ISSUE: WON the probate should be voided on the following grounds:

1. The order admitting the will to probate was made without notice to the petitioner and was thus,
unavoidedly prevented from appearing at the original hearing upon the matter of probate of the
will in question
2. Section 636 of the Code of Civil Procedure is not applicable to the will of a citizen of the United
States residing in these islands
3. Testator was not a resident of the State of Illinois and
4. the will was not made in conformity with the laws of that state
5. Will in question contains provisions which cannot be given effect consistently with the laws of
the Philippine Islands; and it is suggested that as the petitioner is a legitimate heir of the
testator she cannot be deprived of the legitime to which she is entitled under the law governing
testamentary successions in these Islands.

HELD: The probate of Johnson’s will should not be voided.

ISSUE 1: NO. The probate of the will was regular and that the publication was sufficient to give the court
jurisdiction to entertain the proceeding and to allow the will to be probated. The proceeding of probate
is essentially one in rem.

ISSUE 2: NO. The most reasonable interpretation of the language used in the statute, the words
"another state or country" include the United States and the States of the American Union, and that the
operation of the statute is not limited to wills of aliens. It is a rule of hermeneutics that punctuation and
capitalization are aids of low degree in interpreting the language of a statute and can never control
against the intelligible meaning of the written words. Furthermore, the epigraph, or heading,, of a
section, being nothing more than a convenient index to the contents of the provision, cannot have the
effect of limiting the operative words contained in the body of the text. It results that if Emil H. Johnson
was at the time of his death a citizen of the United States and of the State of Illinois, his will was
provable under this section in the courts of the Philippine Islands, provided the instrument was so
executed as to be admissible to probate under the laws of the State of Illinois.

ISSUE 3: NO. The certificate of naturalization supplies incontrovertible proof that upon the date stated
the testator became a citizen of the United States, and inferentially also a citizen of said State. Although
he remained in these Islands for sometime after receiving his discharge, no evidence was adduced
showing that at the time he returned to the United States, in the autumn of 1902, he had then
abandoned Illinois as the State of his permanent domicile, and on the contrary the certificate of
naturalization itself recites that at that time he claimed to be a resident of Illinois.

There is no law in force by virtue of which any person of foreign nativity can become a naturalized
citizen of the Philippine Islands; and it was, therefore, impossible for the testator, even if he had so
desired, to expatriate himself from the United States and change his political status from a citizen of the
United States to a citizen of these Islands. This being true, it is to be presumed that he retained his
citizenship in the State of Illinois along with his status as a citizen of the United States. It would be novel
doctrine to Americans living in the Philippine Islands to be told that by living here they lose their
citizenship in the State of their naturalization or nativity.

ISSUE 4: NO. It does not affirmatively appear from the transaction of the testimony adduced in the trial
court that any witness was examined with reference to the law of Illinois on the subject of the execution
of will. The trial judge no doubt was satisfied that the will was properly executed by examining section
1874 of the Revised Statutes of Illinois. If so, he was in our opinion mistaken. that section authorizes the
courts here to take judicial notice, among other things, of the acts of the legislative department of the
United States. These words clearly have reference to Acts of the Congress of the United States; and we
would hesitate to hold that our courts can, under this provision, take judicial notice of the multifarious
laws of the various American States. Nor do we think that any such authority can be derived from the
broader language, used in the same action, where it is said that our courts may take judicial notice of
matters of public knowledge "similar" to those therein enumerated. The proper rule we think is to
require proof of the statutes of the States of the American Union whenever their provisions are
determinative of the issues in any action litigated in the Philippine courts.

Nevertheless, even supposing that the trial court may have erred in taking judicial notice of the law of
Illinois on the point in question, such error is not now available to the petitioner, first, because the
petition does not state any fact from which it would appear that the law of Illinois is different from what
the court found, and, secondly, because the assignment of error and argument for the appellant in this
court raises no question based on such supposed error.

ISSUE 5: NO. The probate of the will does not affect the intrinsic validity of its provisions, the decree of
probate being conclusive only as regards the due execution of the will.

Nevertheless, it should not be forgotten that the intrinsic validity of the provisions of this will must be
determined by the law of Illinois and not, as the appellant apparently assumes, by the general provisions
here applicable in such matters; for in the second paragraph of article 10 of the Civil Code it is declared
that "legal and testamentary successions, with regard to the order of succession, as well as to the
amount of the successional rights and to the intrinsic validity of their provisions, shall be regulated by
the laws of the nation of the person whose succession is in question, whatever may be the nature of the
property and the country where it may be situate."

Digested by: MYD