## Facts

- Alice B. McCown and Malcolm S. McCown married in 1927.
- During the marriage, Malcolm allegedly owned real property in the Yukon Territory, Canada.
- Alice claimed that Yukon dower law gave her an inchoate dower interest that would entitle her to a one-third life-estate-type share.
- Malcolm obtained a Nevada divorce on substituted service while Alice was in California.
- Malcolm later sold the Yukon land and died in 1941 as a Nevada resident; the sale proceeds allegedly became part of his Nevada estate.
- After the estate administrator rejected her claim, Alice sued the administrator seeking a money judgment measured by the value of her alleged dower interest in the Yukon land/proceeds.
- Alice’s complaint did not set out the text or substance of the foreign (Yukon/Canadian/English) law that allegedly created and defined the claimed dower right.
- The district court overruled the administrator’s demurrer; the administrator did not answer; default and default judgment were entered for Alice.

## Issues

1. Whether a complaint that seeks relief based on a right created by foreign law states a cause of action when it fails to plead the substance of that foreign law.
2. Whether a default judgment may stand when the underlying complaint is legally insufficient because it does not adequately plead the foreign law essential to the claim.

## Decision

- The Nevada Supreme Court reversed the order overruling the demurrer and reversed the default judgment.
- The court held the complaint was insufficient because it did not properly plead the foreign law on which the asserted dower-based claim depended.
- The case was remanded with directions consistent with sustaining the demurrer.

## Legal Principles

- Foreign law is treated as a matter that must be pleaded and proved; it is not accepted as domestic law by default.
- A pleading relying on foreign law must allege the substance of the relevant foreign statutes or rules; conclusory assertions about what foreign law “provides” are inadequate.
- A default admits only well-pleaded factual allegations; it does not cure a complaint’s failure to state a cause of action or supply missing legal elements.

## Conclusion

Because the plaintiff’s claim depended on foreign dower law and the complaint alleged only conclusions rather than the substance of that law, it failed to state a cause of action; the demurrer should have been sustained, and the resulting default judgment was reversed.


Geller v. McCown, 64 Nev. 102, 177 P.2d 461 (Nev. 1947)