Gray v. Noholoa
Headline: Court affirms that a Hawaiian woman’s will transfers all her property, including assets outside the leper settlement, to her husband while rejecting a later translation challenge and denying separate administration.
Holding: The Court affirmed that the testatrix’s will, as the lower courts translated and interpreted it, disposed of all her property, including assets outside the leper settlement, in favor of her husband.
- Husband inherits all property the will covered, including outside the settlement.
- Appellant’s request for an administrator of outside property is denied.
- Affirms lower courts’ translation and factual findings as controlling.
Summary
Background
A woman who lived on a leper settlement left a will written in Hawaiian. A judge and the Territory’s Supreme Court used the same English translation of that will without objection. An appellant later claimed a different translation would show the will did not dispose of property located outside the leper settlement and sought appointment of an administrator for that outside property.
Reasoning
The sole question the Court addressed was whether property owned by the woman outside the leper settlement passed under her will. The trial judge had translated the will, and the Supreme Court relied on that translation too. The higher court noted the original Hawaiian text, when correctly read, showed the testatrix intended to dispose of "also all the other property known to be mine." The Supreme Court therefore agreed with the lower courts’ factual finding and concluded the will gave all the testatrix’s property to her husband, wherever located.
Real world impact
Because the Court accepted the translation and factual findings below, the woman was held not to have died intestate as to outside property. Her husband receives the property that the will covered, and the appellant’s petition for an administrator for outside property was rejected. The decree of the Territory’s Supreme Court was affirmed, making the lower courts’ construction final in this case.
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