Berhalter v. Berhalter
| Decision Date | 23 April 1934 |
| Docket Number | 54 |
| Parties | Berhalter v. Berhalter, Appellant, et al |
| Court | Pennsylvania Supreme Court |
Argued March 22, 1934
Appeal, No. 54, March T., 1934, by defendant, from decree of C.P. Allegheny Co., July T., 1932, No. 689, in case of Jacob Berhalter v. Mary Berhalter and The First National Bank of Braddock. Decree of court below dividing fund affirmed.
Bill for accounting. Before GARDNER, J.
The opinion of the Supreme Court states the facts.
Decree entered dividing fund withdrawn by defendant. Defendant appealed.
Error assigned, inter alia, was decree, quoting record.
The decree of the court below dividing the fund is affirmed costs of this appeal to be paid by appellant.
John F Gloeckner, with him John R. O'Keefe, for appellant.
Leonard M. Boehm, for appellee.
Before FRAZER, C.J., SIMPSON, KEPHART, SCHAFFER, MAXEY, DREW and LINN, JJ.
The parties to this litigation, husband and wife, were married in 1904. After their marriage it was mutually agreed that their common earnings were to be used for the support and maintenance of the family; any savings were to be deposited in the First National Bank of Braddock, in an account in their joint names. All of the earnings of the husband were turned over to the wife in the original envelopes, with seals unbroken; approximately $28,000 was so delivered. The money was regularly deposited; the pass book issued by the bank contained the agreement, in part as follows: the deposits "are our property as husband and wife, by entirety, and we do hereby direct [the] . . . bank to honor . . . all checks that we or either of us may draw upon [the] . . . account." Survivorship was provided for. In December of 1926, the wife withdrew the sum of $6,000 from the joint account, leaving a balance of $18. She deposited this large amount in her own name in another bank, with other funds procured from her husband as well as from her individual earnings. The withdrawal of the funds and the opening of a new account was done without the knowledge of the husband who had not seen the pass book until this trial in the court below.
In the spring of 1932, the wife determined to return to her girlhood home in France and intended to take all of this money with her. She stated that no part of it belonged to her husband. She procured passports and evidently determined to leave her husband. On learning these facts, the husband brought this bill to restrain his wife from withdrawing the money from her account in the First National Bank, as well as for other relief. The court below directed that one-half of the fund be transferred to the husband. From this order, an appeal was taken.
There is no dispute between the parties that the agreement signed by them with the bank constituted the fund an estate by entireties, having the right of survivorship as an incident Leach's Est., 282 Pa. 545. Even though there had been no such agreement, a deposit of money in the names of husband and wife, or, of husband or wife, using both names, creates an estate by entireties: Sloan's Est., 254 Pa. 346; Blick v. Cockins, 252 Pa. 56; Klenke's Est., No. 1, 210 Pa. 572. The incidents of such an estate are unity of interest, title, time and possession, with the right of survivorship. At common law, the heirs of the survivor take to the exclusion of the heirs of the first deceased. The theory of joint estates of this character is that each of the tenants holds the entire estate by the half and by the whole. On the death of one, the other does not acquire a new interest by descent. The interest of the surviving tenant in the whole is not increased by the extinguishment of the interest of the other by death, but rather is freed of the restraints imposed upon it by the presence of an interest of like degree and kind which existed while both lived: Cf. Haggerty's Est., 311 Pa. 503. The whole estate continues in the survivor as it would continue in a corporation after the death of one of the corporators. One of the parties cannot destroy the incidents of the entirety by any act of his or hers: Beihl v. Martin, 236 Pa. 519. It...
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