This bill which comprises fifty-nine pages of printed matter, has been carefully examined by your committee, and we are satisfied that owing to the fact that our present probate law consists of varied pieces of chopped up legislation by many legislatures, that it is high time that a new probate code should be enacted. At the present time no lawyer is safe in conducting probate litigation, for the reason of the many varied and conflicting statutes on the subject. The new proposed code would do away with all this difficulty and embarrassment and make one completed code of this important and statutory controlled subject.

Your committee belives that the time is not far distant when all probate matters will be settled by a Probate Commission, and the anxiety, expense, and litigation now attaching to an estate will in a large measure be done away with. However, we believe that the proposed code is the proper legislation on the probate subject at the present time.

Thirteenth:

Your Committee recommends that where a decision is given by a department of our Supreme Court, and the same is not unanimous, that the defeated party should as a matter of right have a hearing en banc, upon filing a petition for such hearing.

As you well know, the matter of a re-hearing, or matter of a hearing en banc, now rests wholly within the discretion of the Supreme Court.

We, therefore, believe that it would be wise and proper for the State Bar Association to place its influence behind the above recommendations to the end that they may become part of the statutory law of the State of Washington.

FRANK W. BIXBY,

Chairman of Committee.

MR. REEVES DISSENTS

As a member of that committee, I cannot concur in the report made. I do not believe in extending the powers of the prosecuting attorney as demanded there. I can only join in the report insofar as it recommends the adoption of the probate code.

FRANK REEVES.

Mr. Jones: I move that the report be placed on file, printed in the regular proceedings and go over to the next meeting.

The motion was seconded by Mr. Aylmore, and was carried.

Mr. President: That means, practically, its indefinite postponement.

The report of the Committee on Amendment of Law. Mr. Henderson.

Mr. Henderson: Mr. President; Gentlemen of the Bar Association:

(Reading report.) Interpolated after:-"authorized by the Association to do such work":)

I want to say that, in examining this code and probate law in general, I discovered there is a great deal about probate law that I do not know anything about. I thought I would make that announcement now and it would not be necessary to make it after you have heard this report. You will find, on page 4 of this proposed law, subdivision 5 of Section 2 has been omitted in the printed copy. In the code as introduced subdivision 5 reads as follows:

"5. A record of petitions, in which all petitions for orders of sale of real estate shall be recorded.' That is left out of this printed bill; otherwise I think it is the same bill that was introduced in the House.

(Continues reading of report.)

after reading Sec. 32:)

(Interpolated

I feel that it would probably be well to have a statutory definition of what an advancement is and what should be considered an advancement and lay down a rule of evidence before it is proven.

(Interpolated after Sec. 35:)

That provision of Sec. 35 provides for the making of a will "at the dwelling house of the deceased, or where he had been residing for the space of ten days or more, except where such person was taken sick (away) from home and died before his return, and it occurred to us that he might be taken sick at home and be taken to a hospital and die before returning to his home.

(Interpolated after Sec. 39:)

You will notice that Sec. 39 limits the remainder. It occurred to us that a man might want to devise an estate to his mother, who might not be expected

to live very long, and after that the remainder to go to someone else other than the heirs of his mother. This section would absolutely limit a devise of the remainder to anyone other than to the heirs of the devisee and we move to strike out the words "to the heirs of said devisee.'

(Interpolated after Sec. 46:)

It occurred to me that it would be very possible, under this code and under the present code, for a wife to dispose of the community property and place anybody in charge as an executor and dispossess the husband of the community estate upon her death, and we recommend that the surviving spouse be entitled to administer the community property, regardless of any provision in the will, provided such surviving spouse make application.

(Interpolated after Sec. 60.-"hearing shall be

made.")

Our idea was that the right of the surviving spouse to administer the estate should be protected to the extent of requiring notice of the filing of the petition for letters, unless the petition is joined in by the surviving spouse.

(Interpolated after Sec. 110:)

In my own experience I have known of administrators filing claims against an estate with the court commissioner, and they are allowed as matter of form. That seems to develop a rule that thereafter the parties interested in the estate, contesting the claim, must take the burden of proof with reference to establishing its incorrectness, and it seems to me that before an administrator should have his claim allowed against the estate of which he is administrator, that the interested parties should be heard in the matter, so long as the administrator is himself an interested party, and I do not believe the court should approve such claims until there is a hearing of all parties concerned. (Interpolated after Sec. 114:)

Now, I know of attorneys that have had experience similar to this-I have had it myself-where there would be a small estate of community property, the wife would die, and there would be several minor heirs, and there would be some small amount of real estate, a little five or ten-acre orchard tract, a few cows and some chickens and practically enough to support the husband and his children; there would be debts against the estate, and to sell the property to pay those debts would involve a distribution of the estate after sale and the estate would be dissipated and not preserved intact, but if the administrator, as in a few cases I know of, was able to go and borrow money at the bank, on his own credit, and keep the small estate intact until he could develop it into a producing orchard, or some other kind of estate, he would have a greater estate than if he had been compelled to sell it to pay the claims.

(Interpolated after reference to Sec. 431, Rem. & Bal. :)

Some courts have refused to enter further judgment than that returned by the jury and presented by the clerk. Other courts have treated that entered by the clerk upon the return of the verdict as a minute entry, and there is a general confusion as to how that judgment entered immediately upon the return of the verdict must be construed, if it is given its statutory construction. I was informed by Chief Justice Crow that the purpose of that Sec. 431, at the time it was enacted, was to make that verdict a lien immediately upon its return, and that has caused no small amount of confusion.

(Interpolated after the words "copy them," beginning of line 8, under "Recording of Judgments, etc.":)

I want to suggest or tell the Association what suggestions we recommend. In talking with Mr. Sickles, of King County, and one or two other su

perior court clerks, it was brought out that some verdicts filed have taken as long as four months to copy them. I think Mr. Sickles informed me that in King County, in copying one judgment alone, it required the work of two men for four months to copy that judgment into the record, and it required nearly as long, I presume, to copy the verdict into the record, and it occurred to me that there was no necessity for all that extra copying, and I thought if the attorneys were required to draw the judgment entry, and all orders required by law to be recorded, on paper of uniform size and quality that would be placed in a binder, that, when they are filed with the clerk, the only thing he would have to do would be to place them in a binder, and they then become a permanent record. At the present time we have the files containing all this record, then we have a book containing the entire record again. It is duplicated in the clerk's office, and involves a large amount of work. In recording this judgment in King County, I believe he informed me that it cost about five hundred dollars to record that one judgment.

(Continues and completes reading report.)

REPORT OF COMMITTEE ON AMENDMENT OF LAW

From the fact that the members of the committee on amendment of law reside in various parts of the state, it has seemed impractical to have a meeting prior to the assembling of this association. One meeting of the committee was called in Seattle, but at that time it was impossible for more than two members of the committee to be present. The chairman of the committee has discussed with some of the members various recommendations made in this report. Hower, owing to the fact that this committee was directed at the last meeting of the association to examine the proposed probate code introduced in the last legislature and report at this meeting, and owing to the request of the executive committee that this report be handed to the secretary prior to this meeting of the association, it has been necessary for the chairman to draft the report without full consultation with the members of the committee. You will, therefore, understand that the responsibility for this report must rest on the chairman and the infirmities herein are chargeable to him.