Perry v. Leveroni

• Decision Date: 21 May 1925
• Citation: 252 Mass. 390,147 N.E. 826
• Parties: PERRY v. LEVERONI.
• Court: United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court

252 Mass. 390

147 N.E. 826

PERRY

v.LEVERONI.

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, Suffolk.

May 21, 1925.

Report from Superior Court, Suffolk County; William A. Burns, Judge.

Action by Herbert G. Perry, administrator of estate of Jefferson I. Morse, deceased, against Frank Leveroni, public administrator of estate of Alice M. Morse. On report without decision. Judgment for plaintiff.

J. E. Hannigan, of Boston, for plaintiff.

F. H. Magison, of Haverhill, for defendant.

CROSBY, J.

This is an action of contract wherein the plaintiff, as administrator of the estate of Jefferson I. Morse, seeks to recover the amount of three savings bank deposits. The case comes before us upon a report of a judge of the Superior Court without making any decision thereon, upon request of the parties, with an agreement as to all the material facts, under G. L. c. 231, § 111.

The agreed facts in the case at bar, summarily stated, showed that Jefferson I. Morse, the plaintiff's intestate, and Alice M. Flaglor were married July 21, 1894; that they lived together until the date of his death, February 9, 1923; that in March, 1923, she died; and that there was no issue of the marriage. The inventory of his estate showed real estate of the value of $3,495 and personal estate of $12,712.53, nearly all of which consisted of ten deposits in various savings banks and in other banks. Mrs. Morse owned no real estate, but the inventory of her personal estate consisted in part of five deposits in as many banks. The ownership of three of these deposits is the question we have to decide. All of the money deposited in the banks included in the inventory of her estate (with the exception of one deposit made before the marriage) was in her maiden name, but had been earned by her husband. At the time of the husband's death the ten bank books representing accounts in his own name and the three bank books representing the deposits in controversy were tied together in a bundle and placed in a soup tureen in a cupboard in the Morse home. In the same receptacle, but not in the bundle with the other thirteen, were two savings bank books in the name of the wife.

After the husband's death, his sister, Elizabeth A. Morse, visited Mrs. Morse at her home in Revere. While there, Mrs. Morse took all the bank books from the tureen, including the two in her own name, and showed them to Miss Morse; she held up the two owned by her and said, ‘These are mine-in my own name’; she said nothing about the other books, but ‘she pulled them apart while they were tied in a bundle * * * and looked at them.’ Mrs. Morse and her sister-in-law later went to the office of the plaintiff, and the thirteen books tied together were delivered to him. The three deposits, the title to which is in dispute, were made in the Boylston National Bank (now the Commonwealth-Atlantic National Bank in Boston), the Union Institution for Savings in Boston, and the County Savings Bank in Chelsea.

The facts respecting the deposit in the Commonwealth-Atlantic National Bank are as follows: The account was opened November 29, 1920, with a deposit of $300 in the name of Jefferson I. Morse; at some later date, at Morse's direction, this was changed to a joint account payable to ‘Jefferson I. Morse, or Alice M. Morse, or the survivor.’ Alice M. Morse did not sign and deposit with the bank any identification card.

The account in the Union Institution for Savings was opened in the name of Morse on January 22, 1889. On June 27, 1898, another account in this bank was opened in the name of ‘...