Basket v. Hassell

• Decision Date: 26 March 1883
• Citation: 27 L.Ed. 500,2 S.Ct. 415,107 U.S. 602
• Parties: BASKET v. HASSELL, Adm'r, etc
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

107 U.S. 602

2 S.Ct. 415

27 L.Ed. 500

BASKET v. HASSELL, Adm'r, etc.

March 26, 1883.

This is a bill in equity, filed by the appellee, a citizen of Tennessee, to which, besides the appellant, a citizen of Kentucky, the Evansville National Bank of Evansville, Indiana, Samuel Bayard, its president, and Henry Reis, its cashier, and James W. Shackelford and Robert D. Richardson, attorneys for Basket, citizens of Indiana, were made parties defendant. The single question in the case was, whether a certain fund, represented by a certificate of deposit, issued by the bank to Chaney in his life-time, belonged to Basket, who claimed it as a gift from Chaney, having possession of the certificate, or to the appellee, as Chaney's administrator. Basket asserted his title not only by answer, but by a cross-bill. The final decree ordered the certificate of deposit to be surrendered to the complainant, and that the bank pay to the complainant, as its holder, the amount due thereon. The money was then tendered by the bank, in open court, and the certificate was deposited with the clerk. It was thereupon ordered, Basket having prayed an appeal, that until the expiration of the time allowed for filing a bond on appeal, the bank should hold the money as a deposit at 4 per cent. interest, but if a bond be given, that the same be paid to the clerk, and by him loaned to the bank on the same terms. Basket failed to give the bond required for a supersedeas, but afterwards prayed another appeal, which he perfected by giving bond for costs alone. To this appeal Basket and the appellee are the parties respectively, the co-defendants not having appealed, or been cited after severance. And, on the ground that they are necessary parties, the appellee has moved to dismiss the appeal.

It is apparent, however, that the sole controversy is between the present parties to the appeal. By the delivery of the certificate of deposit to the clerk the attorneys of Basket are exonerated from all responsibility, and the payment of the money by the bank to the appellee equally relieves it and its officers; for, not being parties to the appeal, and the execution of the decree not having been superseded, the decree will always furnish them protection, whether affirmed or reversed, because, if reversed, it would only be so as between the parties to the appeal. So that the omitted parties have no legal interest, either in maintaining or reversing the decree, and consequently, are not necessary parties to the appeal. Simpson v. Greely, 20 Wall. 152; Cox v. u. s. 6 Pet. 182; Forgay v. Conrad, 6 How. 203; Germain v. Mason, 12 Wall. 261. The motion to dismiss the appeal is accordingly overruled.

The fund in respect to which the controversy has arisen was represented by a certificate of deposit, of which the following is a copy:

Page 603-Continued.

'EVANSVILLE NATIONAL BANK,

'EVANSVILLE, IND., Sept. 8, 1875.

'H. M. Chaney has deposited in this bank twenty-three thousand five hundred and fourteen 70-100 dollars, payable in current funds, to the order of himself, on surrender of this certificate properly indorsed, with interest at the rate of 6 per cent. per annum, if left for six months.

'$23,514.70.

HENRY REIS, Cashier.'

Chaney, being in possession of this certificate at his home in the county of Sumner, state of Tennessee, during his last sickness and in apprehension of death, wrote on the back thereof the following indorsement:

'Pay to Martin Basket, of Henderson, Ky.; no one else; then, not till my death. My life seems to be uncertain. I may live through this spell. Then I will attend to it myself.

'H. M. CHANEY.'

Chaney then delivered the certificate to Basket, and died, without recovering from that sickness, in January, 1876.

P. Phillips and W. Hallett Phillips, for appellant.

[Argument of Counsel on pages 604-608 intentionally omitted] Asa Iglehart, for appellee.

MATTHEWS, J.

It is claimed on behalf of the appellant that this constitutes a valid donatio mortis causa, which entitles him to the fund; and whether it be so, is the sole question for our determination.

The general doctrine of the common law as to gifts of this character is fully recognized by the supreme court of Tennessee as part of the law of that state. Richardson v. Adams, 10 Yerg. 273; Sims v. Walker, 8 Humph. 503; Gass v. Simpson, 4 Cold. 288. In the case last mentioned, that court had occasion to consider the nature of such a disposition of property, and the several elements that enter into its proper definition. Among other things, it said:

'A question seems to have arisen, at an early day, over which there was much contest, as to the real nature of gifts causa mortis. Were they gifts inter vivos, to take effect before the death of the donor, or were they in the nature of a legacy taking effect only at the death of the donor. At the termination of this contest, it seems to have been settled that a gift causa mortis is ambulatory and incomplete during the donor's life, and is therefore revocable by him and subject to his debts, upon a deficiency of assets, not because the gift is testamentary or in the nature of a legacy, but because such is the condition annexed to it, and because it would otherwise be fraudulent as to creditors; for no man may give his property who is unable to pay his debts; and all now agree that it has no other property in common with a legacy. The property must pass at the time and not be intended to pass at the giver's death; yet, the party making the gift, does not part with the whole interest, save only in a certain event; and until the event occurs which is to divest him, the title remains in the donor. The donee is vested with an inchoate title, and the intermediate ownership is in him; but his title is defeasible until the happening of the event necessary to render it absolute. It differs from a legacy in this, that it does not require probate, does not pass to the executor or administrator, but is taken against, not from him. Upon the happening of the event upon which the gift is dependent, the title of the donee becomes by relation complete and absolute from the time of the delivery, and that without any consent or other act on the part of the executor or administrator; consequently, the gift is inter vivos.'

In another part of the opinion (page 297) it is said:

'All the authorities agree that delivery is essential to the validity of the gift, and that, it is said, is a wise principle of our laws, because delivery strengthens the evidence of the gift, and is, certainly, a very powerful fact for the prevention of frauds and perjury.'

In the first of these extracts there is an inaccuracy of expression, which seems to have introduced some confusion, if not an apparent contradiction, when, after having stated that 'the property must pass at the time and not be intended to pass at the giver's death,' it is added that, 'until the event occurs which is to divest him, the title remains in the donor.' But a view of the entire passage leaves no room to doubt its meaning: that a donatio mortis causa must be completely executed, precisely as required in the case of gifts inter vivos, subject to be divested by the happening of any of the conditions subsequent; that is, upon actual revocation by the donor, or by the donor's surviving the apprehended peril, or outliving the donee, or by the occurrence of a deficiency of assets necessary to pay the debts of the deceased donor. These conditions are the only qualifications that distinguish gifts mortis causa and Inter vivos. On the other hand, if the gift does not take effect as an executed and complete transfer to the donee of possession and title, either legal or equitable, during the life of the donor, it is a testamentary disposition, good only if made and proved as a will.

This statement of the law, we think, to be correctly deduced from the judgments of the highest courts in England and in this country; although, as might well have been expected, since the early introduction of the doctrine into the common law from the Roman civil law, it has developed, by new and successive applications, not without fluctuating and inconsistent decisions.

'As to the character of the thing given,' says Chief Justice SHAW, in Chase v. Redding, 13 Gray, 418-420, 'the law has undergone some changes. Originally it was limited, with some exactness, to chattels, to some object of value deliverable by the hand; then extended to securities transferable solely by delivery, as bank-notes, lottery tickets, notes payable to bearer or to order, and indorsed in blank; subsequently it has been extended to bonds and other choses in action in writing or represented by a certificate, when the entire equitable interest is assigned; and in the very latest cases on the subject of this commonwealth, it has been held that a note not negotiable, or if negotiable, not actually indorsed, but delivered, passes, with a right to use the name of the administrator of the promisee, to collect it for the donee's own use;' citing Sessions v. Moseley, 4 Cush. 87; Bates v. Kempton, 7 Gray, 382; Parish v. Stone, 14 Pick. 203.

In the case last mentioned,—Parish v. Stone,—the same distinguished judge speaking of the cases which had extended the doctrine of gifts mortis causa to include choses in action, delivered so as to operate only as a transfer by equitable assignment or a declaration of trust, says further, that 'these cases all go on the assumption that a bond, note, or other security is a valid subsisting obligation for the payment of a sum of money, and the gift is, in effect, a gift of the money by a gift and delivery of the instrument that shows its existence and affords the means of reducing it to possession.' He had, in a previous part of the same opinion, stated that 'the necessity of an actual delivery has been uniformly insisted upon in the application of the rules of the English law to this species of gift.' Page 204.

In Camp's...