Mandelbaum v. Weiss
| Decision Date | 20 December 1950 |
| Docket Number | No. A--416,A--416 |
| Citation | 11 N.J.Super. 27,77 A.2d 493 |
| Parties | MANDELBAUM et al. v. WEISS. |
| Court | New Jersey Superior Court — Appellate Division |
Victor H. Miles, Newark, argued the cause for the plaintiffs-respondents.
Milton Miller, Lakewood, argued the cause for the defendant-appellant (Julius Cohn, Lakewood, on the brief).
Before Judges JACOBS, EASTWOOD and GIBELOW.
The opinion of the court was delivered by
EASTWOOD, J.A.D.
This is an appeal from a judgment of the Ocean County District Court entered in favor of the plaintiff and against the defendant in the sum of $357.40 and costs in a replevin action for the recovery of certain chattels alleged to have been the subject of conversion by the defendant.
Janet Mandelbaum and Seymour Weiss were engaged to be married and three parties were held in their honor in January, 1949. The articles that are the subject of this suit were received by the engaged couple at these engagement parties, with cards accompanying the gifts bearing an inscription indicating that the gifts were intended for 'Janet and Seymour.'
The parties agree that the gifts were reposed in the custody of the prospective groom for safekeeping until their marriage took place. Several months thereafter the aura of betrothal bliss which had enveloped the parties had lifted and their engagement was broken. The evidence as to the exact date of the disengagement is somewhat inconclusive. However, it is apparent that the parting was by mutual consent and the prospective bride returned the engagement ring to her previously intended husband.
Mr. Weiss apparently did not reciprocate the plaintiff's gracious voluntary act of returning the ring by a similar gallent gesture of compliance with plaintiff's request for the possession of the gifts. Consequently, she instituted an action in replevin and seeking damages for their unlawful detention. Evidently, the parties were not inclined to consider their proposed marriage as a sacred status, but rather as a business or commercial transaction. The trial court determined that social custom, whenever practical, requires the delivery of engagement gifts to the intended bride and having found that the defendant had converted the gifts to his own use, directed the entry of the aforementioned judgment.
The defendant contends that the gifts in question are owned by the parties as tenants in common; that the plaintiff has failed to sustain the burden of proving a paramount right to possession and, therefore, an action of replevin will not lie.
The plaintiff contends that social custom in America recognizes a paramount right in the intended bride to the possession of engagement gifts. She alleges that engagement gifts are given upon a condition subsequent (the marriage of the engaged couple), and upon the breach of engagement the parties are divested of joint title in the gifts and title is transferred solely to the party whose future happiness originally induced the gift. It is on this theory that plaintiff contends the gifts, allegedly given by her relatives, should be returned to her.
It is true that much of our law finds its origin in custom. However, this court is aware of no social custom which compels the award of engagement gifts to the disappointed bride. Consequently, judicial notice cannot be accorded thereto.
As a general proposition, a tenancy in common exists whenever an estate in real or personal property is owned concurrently by two or more persons under a conveyance or circumstances which do not expressly or impliedly call for some other form of co-tenancy. The nature of the relationship of a tenancy in common is such that possession is Per my and not Per tout and each tenant owns his portion of the whole. In the instant case the engagement gifts were admittedly given to 'Janet and Seymour' without any apparent reservation. Under such circumstances, we feel constrained to hold that a tenancy in common in the subject matter of the gifts was created....
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