Brafman v. Brafman

Pattison, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. This is an appeal from an order of the Orphans’ Court of Baltimore City dismissing the petition of the appellant, Mary Brafman, in which she asked that the letters of administration granted out of said court to the appellees upon the personal estate of her deceased husband, Jacob Brafman, who died in Atlantic City on August 28th, 1922, be revoked,and the appellees be enjoined “from making any disposition of the funds held by them, in said estate.” The question presented by this appeal is, Did the Orphans’ Court of Baltimore City have jurisdiction to grant letters of administration upon the estate of Jacob Brafman? And its determination depends solely upon the question whether he, .at the time of his death, was a resident of the City of Baltimore. The; word “residence” asi here used means, the fixed or permanent home; or domicile of the deceased, as distinguished from a temporary abode.

Whiting v. Shipley, 127 Md. 117 . A domicile, as said, by the Supreme Court in Mitchell v. United States, 21 Wallace, 138, “is a residence at a particular place accompanied with positive or presumptive; proof of the intention to remain there for an unlimited time”; and this Court said in Thomas v. Warner, 83 Md. 120 , “the idea of residence is compounded of fact and intention; to effect a chang'e of it, there must be an actual removal to another habitation, with an intention of remaining there”; and where there is an attempt to show that there has been a change in a known, fixed and established residence, it is incumbent upon the party attempting to establish such fact to show (1) an ⁴¹⁵ actual removal to. another habitation, and (2) that the person removing did so with the intention of remaining there, at least for an unlimited time. Pope v. Williams, 98 Md. 59 . A decedent’s domicile at the time of his death.is the proper jurisdiction in which to obtain letters testamentary or of administration upon his estate. 11 R. C. L. 65.

The evidence in this case discloses that Jaeob Br.afm.an was bom and reared in the City of Baltimore and, after reaching his majority, he lived and worked in that city but, some years before his death, his health became impaired and, in consequence thereof, he could do little or no work. While in this condition, he visited different resorts along the Atlantic coast. In the summer he went to Atlantic City, and in winter to one o>r more of the resorts, in Georgia and Florida. When not at these places, he lived in on© of the smaller hotels in the City of Baltimore, or with his sister or brother.

In the summer' of 1918, while at. Atlantic City, he met the plaintiff, a trained nurse, whose home was in Hanticoke, Pennsylvania. In the following Hovember they were married in Philadelphia. In his application for1 the marriage license, he stated that his residence at that time was in Baltimore City, Maryland.

After they were married, they went to Atlantic City, where they lived in hotels and apartment houses as man and wife for about six months, when they separated. She went to New York, where she resumed her work as nurse and he remained, for a while at least, in Atlantic City. They never again lived together, although Brafman wrote to her a number of times asking her to return to him. He also appealed to her brother and one of her friends to use their influence with her in an effort to have her come bade to him, but it seems tbeir efforts were unavailing.

He, as he did before his marriage, spent several months of the winter, in each of the succeeding years of his life, in the south, and his summers in Atlantic City. The other times he