Estate of England

Letters of administration with the will annexed were issued to the proponent. Appellants filed a contest of the will and appeal from the judgment declaring the will to be valid and denying the contest.

The ground of the contest is that the will was not entirely written, dated, and signed by the hand of the testatrix, Anna England. No signature appears at the end of the document, which it is conceded by appellant is entirely in the handwriting of the decedent. The name “Anna England” appears in the caption only, and the question before this court on appeal is whether the decedent by writing her name in said place thereby “signed” the will. A photostatic copy of the document is here produced.

The decision of this case is controlled by a recent decision of a very similar ease, Estate of Morgan, 200 Cal. 400 [253 Pac. 702], wherein it is said, at page 401: “This court has, upon a number of occasions very recently, been called upon to consider the nature of the evidence permissible and sufficient to establish the due execution of an olographic will, where the signing thereof by the testator is not in the customary place at the end of the instrument. The conclusion reached and adhered…