## Facts

- Claus Spreckels and Anna C. Spreckels married in 1852, lived in California throughout the marriage, and had five children.
- During the marriage, all property acquired by Claus was alleged to be community property.
- Between about 1896 and 1905, Claus made substantial inter vivos gifts of community property to two sons, John D. and Adolph B. Spreckels, allegedly totaling about $25 million, leaving much less property at his death.
- Anna did not give written consent to these gifts during Claus’s lifetime.
- Claus died in 1908; his will referenced the advances to John and Adolph and made no further provision for them.
- Anna, with knowledge of the prior transfers and Claus’s testamentary treatment of them, later executed a will leaving her estate to the other three children and omitting John and Adolph on the stated ground that Claus had already advanced a large part of the estate to them.
- The other three children (and executors) sued John and Adolph for an accounting and restitution (or value) of transfers alleged to exceed Claus’s one-half power over community property.

## Issues

1. Whether the statutory requirement of the wife’s written consent for gifts of community property made a nonconsensual gift void, or merely voidable at the wife’s election.
2. Whether Anna’s post-transfer conduct, including her will acknowledging the advances and omitting the donee sons, constituted ratification that barred later challenge by her estate and devisees.
3. Whether the complaint stated a viable cause of action by executors/devisees to recover the wife’s alleged community share after the wife’s death.

## Decision

- The California Supreme Court affirmed the judgment sustaining the general demurrer and dismissing the action.
- The court held that gifts of community property made without the wife’s written consent were voidable, not void.
- The court held that Anna, with knowledge of the gifts, ratified and confirmed them through her testamentary disposition recognizing the advances and intentionally excluding the donee sons.
- Because any avoidance right belonged to Anna and was extinguished by ratification, her estate and devisees could not later rescind the transfers; the complaint therefore failed to state a cause of action.

## Legal Principles

- A statutory restriction on the managing spouse’s power to make gratuitous transfers of community property without the other spouse’s written consent does not, by itself, create in the nonmanaging spouse a present vested ownership interest that renders unauthorized gifts void.
- Gifts made in violation of such a statutory consent requirement are voidable at the nonconsenting spouse’s election and may be validated by ratification.
- Ratification may be shown by informed conduct or testamentary acts that treat the transfers as valid and final; once ratified, the nonconsenting spouse and successors in interest are barred from later attacking the transaction.

## Conclusion

The court treated nonconsensual inter vivos gifts of community property as voidable rather than void and held that the wife’s informed testamentary recognition of the transfers amounted to ratification, defeating her estate’s later effort to recover the transferred property or its value.


Spreckels v. Spreckels, 172 Cal. 775, 158 P. 537 (Cal. 1916)