Estate of Deceased Person—Letters of Administration—Property of Estate Consisting of Equitable Demand.—Where, under an application for letters of administration, it is made to appear that the sole property of the estate is an equitable claim or demand, the court in probate may treat such claim as property justifying the issuance of letters in advance of its establishment in a court of equity.

Id.—Effect of Decree Granting Letters.—In so doing, the decree of the court granting letters of administration will in no sense be considered an adjudication either upon the value or validity of the equitable demand, but will be an adjudication solely that the estate makes a prima facie showing of an equitable claim which justifies the issuance of letters of administration.

Id.—Inquiry into Nature of Equitable Demand—Refusal of Letters When Demand is not Reasonable.—The foregoing rules do not mean that any and every assertion of an equitable right demands of the court in probate the issuance of letters. While the court is not called upon to try, and will not therefore try, the question of the validity and enforceability of such an asserted equity, it is both its right and its duty to consider the nature of the asserted equity, at least to the extent of determining whether, if it be all that it is asserted, it may be made the subject of an equitable decree substantiating it and giving it legal validity, and it will deny letters of administration where the claim presented to it has not such reasonable and colorable value.

Id.—Discretion of Court in Granting or Refusing Letters.—The court in probate has a real discretion in the matter of granting or refusing to grant letters testamentary or of administration. It will always grant such letters where administration is either necessary or advisable or desirable. But it will not grant them, in its dr«cretion, where the purpose to be accomplished can be as well or better attained in another forum.

Id.—Letters of Administration Properly Refused—Equitable Claim to Attack Sale of Interest in Estate for Fraud.—The deceased, on whose estate ancillary letters of administration with the will annexed, were applied for in this state, was a resident of Kansas, where she died testate, and where her estate had been finally.probated and the rights of all beneficiaries under her will decreed and determined. At the time of her death her estate consisted of an undivided interest in property in California belonging to another estate then and there in process of settlement. Pending the settlement of the two estates, the interest of the Kansas beneficiaries in the property in the California estate was sold under order of the Kansas court, the purchase price paid, the money distributed to them, and the Kansas estate finally closed. Subsequently, distribution of the California estate was had to the purchaser of the interests of the Kansas beneficiaries, and the decrees of distribution had become final. The petitioner for ancillary letters of administration in this state was an assignee of a very small part of the interest of one of the beneficiaries in the Kansas estate, and claimed that the sale of the interests of such beneficiaries in the California estate was procured by fraud of the purchaser, and that the equitable right to avoid such sale constituted property in California, to administer which he was entitled to letters of administration. Seld, that the court did not abuse its discretion in refusing to issue letters of administration, and remitting the beneficiaries to the establishment of their rights by direct action in a court of equity.

Id.—Probate of Foreign Will—Estate of Testator Must Exist in County When Administration is Sought.—Section 1322 of the Code of Civil Procedure, touching the probate of foreign wills and providing that administration may be had in any county in which the testator shall have left any estate, means any county in which there shall be estate of the testator at the time administration is sought.

Id.—McEnerney Act—Decree Establishing Title in Distributee of Estate—Finality of Decree Against Beneficiaries of Estate— Fraud in Distribution.—A final decree in an action brought under the McEnerney Act, establishing the title to land in a plaintiff claiming title under a prior decree of distribution in the estate of a deceased person, is as binding upon other persons claiming as beneficiaries of such estate as upon all the rest of the world. If the decree establishing title were obtained wholly upon the evidence offered by the decree of distribution, and the distribution itself had been secured by fraud, it would amount to nothing more than the introduction of fraudulent evidence in the trial of a cause, which fact would not militate in the slightest against the validity of the decree, nor be a ground for setting it aside.