## Facts

- Evan Jones, a Welsh native, immigrated to Iowa in 1883, lived and worked there for decades, and was naturalized in Wapello County in 1896.
- Jones accumulated substantial property in Iowa, including farms and city real estate, and voted there after naturalization.
- In 1915, Jones decided to return to Wales, sold his Iowa real estate, and left most proceeds (about $20,000) on deposit in an Ottumwa bank, plus a note and mortgage for collection.
- Jones bought a draft for about $2,000, provided his banker a sister’s address in Wales, and stated he intended to live with that sister.
- Jones sailed from New York on May 1, 1915, aboard the Lusitania and drowned when it was sunk on May 7, 1915, before reaching Wales.
- An Iowa administrator was appointed; Margaret Adams claimed she was Jones’s illegitimate daughter and sole heir under Iowa law, while Jones’s siblings claimed as collateral heirs.
- The district court denied Adams’s claim, and she appealed.

## Issues

1. Whether Jones’s domicile at death was Iowa or Wales.
2. Whether the law governing succession to Jones’s personal property depended on domicile, thereby determining whether an illegitimate child could inherit.

## Decision

- The Iowa Supreme Court reversed.
- Jones’s domicile at death remained in Iowa because he had not actually acquired a new domicile in Wales before dying.
- Iowa law governed succession to Jones’s personal estate.
- Under Iowa law (as conceded by the parties), Adams, as Jones’s illegitimate child, was entitled to inherit.

## Legal Principles

- An established domicile continues until a new domicile is acquired.
- A domicile of choice requires both physical presence in the new place and intent to remain there indefinitely; intent to relocate, without completed presence and residence, does not change domicile.
- Succession to a decedent’s personal property is governed by the law of the decedent’s domicile at death, including rules determining whether an illegitimate child may take by intestacy.

## Conclusion

Because Jones died while traveling and never became physically present as a resident in Wales, his Iowa domicile persisted; Iowa intestacy law therefore controlled distribution of his personal estate, entitling the claimant illegitimate daughter to inherit and requiring reversal of the decree denying her claim.


In re Estate of Jones, 192 Iowa 78, 182 N.W. 227 (Iowa 1921)