Horan

This is an appeal by one defendant from a portion of an interlocutory decree in partition. The contest is really a claim of priority between appellant and respondent Driscoll in and to a portion of the fund arising from a sale of the property for partition. The story opens with the death, intestate and without issue, of Sabina A. Lanon, leaving a considerable estate in Los Angeles County. A contest arose as to the persons who were entitled to inherit said estate under the laws of California. An impostor, Kyle, who claimed to be decedent’s son, asserted the right to inherit the whole thereof; other claimants were Mary A. Varían, a sister, and Mark Edwards James Horan, John P. Horan, and Thomas J. Horan, nephews.

In October, 1921, one W. C. Cox of Chicago, known as a “lost heir hunter,” secured from said sister and from two of said nephews an assignment of a one-third interest in and to their respective portions of said estate, upon the consideration that he should employ and pay attorneys and bear the other expenses necessary to establish their heirship thereto. Said persons executing this conveyance claimed a 45/54ths interest in said estate. On November 25, 1921, said Cox…