## Facts

- Michael White died intestate in May 1885, leaving a widow, Lucinda White, and collateral relatives (siblings).
- White had long lived in West Virginia on land near the West Virginia–Pennsylvania border; a separate dwelling and about forty acres lay in Pennsylvania.
- White and his wife sold their West Virginia farm and moved their possessions and livestock to the Pennsylvania house with the intent to live there indefinitely.
- After arriving and setting up at the Pennsylvania house, they spent that night at a nearby West Virginia home because the Pennsylvania house was cold and damp and Lucinda felt ill.
- Lucinda’s illness (typhoid fever) prevented travel; White stayed in West Virginia to care for her while tending daily to property and livestock in Pennsylvania and treating the Pennsylvania house as home.
- White contracted typhoid fever and died in West Virginia without physically returning to live in the Pennsylvania house after the first night away.
- The estate administrator distributed White’s personal property under West Virginia intestacy law, which gave the entire personal estate to the widow.
- White’s siblings sued to set aside that settlement, asserting White’s domicile at death was Pennsylvania, where intestacy law would give the widow only one-half and distribute the remainder to siblings.

## Issues

1. Whether Michael White’s domicile at death was West Virginia or Pennsylvania.
2. Whether intestate succession and distribution of a decedent’s personal property is governed by the law of the decedent’s domicile at death, even if death occurs in another state.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia reversed the circuit court’s dismissal of the siblings’ suit.
- The court held that White changed his domicile from West Virginia to Pennsylvania when he abandoned his former residence and moved with intent to reside in Pennsylvania for an indefinite time.
- The court held that White’s death in West Virginia, after returning there temporarily and being detained by illness, did not change or revive a West Virginia domicile.
- Because White’s domicile at death was Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania law controlled distribution of his personal estate, and the prior distribution under West Virginia law was improper.

## Legal Principles

- A person acquires a new domicile by abandoning the former residence without intent to return and establishing residence (even if only inchoate) in the new place with intent to make it home for an indefinite time.
- A domicile is not lost until a new domicile is acquired; both presence (actual or inchoate) and intent must coexist.
- A temporary visit to the former state, even followed by illness and death there, does not defeat a newly acquired domicile when intent to return to the former domicile is absent.
- The law of the state of the decedent’s domicile at the time of death governs intestate succession and distribution of the decedent’s personal property, regardless of where the decedent dies.

## Conclusion

The court determined that Michael White established a Pennsylvania domicile upon moving there with intent to remain, and that a short return to West Virginia followed by illness and death did not alter that status; therefore, Pennsylvania law governed intestate distribution of his personal estate.


White v. Tennant, 31 W. Va. 790, 8 S.E. 596 (W. Va. 1888)