Garner

This is a contest for letters of administration between Georgina Garner, a niece of Goodman, the decedent, and Judd, the nominee of Maggie Phillips, Goodman’s illegitimate daughter, who claims to have been adopted or legitimated by her father in his lifetime. Her claim of legitimation is based exclusively upon an alleged compliance with the provisions of section 230 of the Civil Code, which reads as follows:—

The only question in the case is whether the conditions thus prescribed were complied with. The materials facts, as found by the superior court, are, that Goodman had a home and a family from 1874 to 1897, and lived with his family in that home from 1876 to 1897, at which time the woman Annie (an Indian), with whom he was living as a wife, died.

Maggie Phillips was born in 1878, and is the daughter of another Indian woman, Mary. She was publicly acknowledged by Goodman to be his daughter during her minority, and he seems to have given her small sums of money, but he never took her to his home—never received her into his family —during the lifetime of Annie, nor until after her majority and marriage, when for the first time she and her husband lived with him for a few…