Sheedy v. Roach

• Decision Date: 29 June 1878
• Citation: 124 Mass. 472
• Parties: Patrick Sheedy, administrator, v. Catharine Roach
• Court: United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court

124 Mass. 472

Patrick Sheedy, administrator, v. Catharine Roach

Supreme Court of Massachusetts

June 29, 1878

Argued October 24, 1877; October 25, 1877 [Syllabus Material]

Bristol. Contract for money had and received. Trial in the Superior Court, before Brigham, C. J., who allowed a bill of exceptions in substance as follows:

Winifred Sheedy, the plaintiff's intestate and wife, had $ 627 deposited in the Fall River Savings Bank, and held on account thereof the usual bank book issued by savings banks to their depositors. During the last illness of the intestate, the defendant, who was her sister, obtained possession of the book with an order for the whole deposit, which, on the day following her death, she drew, claiming it as a gift.

It appeared that whatever passed between the defendant and the intestate, in relation to the order and book and the alleged gift of the property, was in the absence of the plaintiff and without his knowledge; that Mrs. Sheedy could not write, the order being written at the bank by the treasurer and given to the defendant, who carried it to the plaintiff's house that the order was signed on Sunday, May 6, by a cross; but there was evidence tending to show that the same was so signed by Mrs. Sheedy, with knowledge of its contents, and delivered to the defendant; that the book remained at the plaintiff's house in its usual place in an open trunk standing in the bed-room of Sheedy and his wife until the following Friday night, when the defendant came from Fall River, took the book and carried it home with her on the next day; and that Mrs. Sheedy died on Sunday night, May 13.

"There was evidence tending to show that Mrs. Sheedy intended, in the event of her decease, that the money should be distributed among certain of her relations and other friends, including the defendant.

"Martin Mylon testified to declarations of the intestate, made before the execution of the order, that she wanted to leave some of it, $ 200, to her parents, some of it to her brother in Ireland, some of it to her poor sister in Fall River, and none of it to Katie, as she had enough of her own; and that the intestate, at the time of signing the order, expressed her wish that the money should go partly to her parents and partly to her sister.

"Mary Maloney testified to declarations of the intestate that she intended that the witness and her mother should each have some of the money. Except as to the parents, there was no evidence as to amounts, in case of a distribution, to be received by the several persons named, nor when it should be paid to them.

"In answer to interrogatories filed by the plaintiff under the Gen. Sts. c. 129, § 46, the defendant said the order and book were given to her without instructions what to do with the money, either in the event of the intestate's living or dying. There was also testimony tending to show that the money was given to the defendant for herself."

The plaintiff made, among other requests for instructions, the following: "6. If it was the intention of Mrs. Sheedy, at the delivery of the order, that, in the event of her death, Catharine Roach should have a part of the money, and a part only, and did not designate what part or portion should be hers, and what portion should be distributed to others, Catharine Roach cannot now lawfully hold the whole fund or any part thereof, and the plaintiff is entitled to recover the whole sum."

The judge refused so to rule, and instructed the jury as follows: "If the jury finds that Winifred Sheedy, in contemplation of death, gave and delivered to the defendant the bank book, intending thereby to give to her then and there the money deposited in her (the intestate's) name in the bank, and the same was so received and accepted by the defendant, then the plaintiff is not entitled to recover, and the jury is to find for the defendant.

"If the jury finds that Winifred Sheedy, in contemplation of death, being sick and apprehensive that she would not recover, gave and delivered to the defendant the bank book, intending thereby to give to the defendant the money deposited in her (the intestate's) name in the bank, in case of her death, and that the defendant received and accepted the same and drew the money either before or after the death of the intestate, then the plaintiff is not entitled to recover, and the jury is to find for the defendant.

"A gift made by a person, in present contemplation of death, of any property the title to which can pass by delivery, is a valid gift; the essentials of such a gift are, a clear and manifest intention of the owner to give, a subject of gift capable of passing and delivery, and an actual delivery at the time in contemplation of death; such a gift is not perfected until the death of the giver; it is revocable by the giver; if he recovers from the cause of apprehended death, under the influence of which the gift is made, the gift is void.

"But where there is such a gift and actual delivery, and the expected death occurs, the gift is complete, and vests the property in the person to whom the gift is made; and such a gift would be none the less valid, if the gift was made and received in view of the distribution, wholly or in part, after the giver's death, among other persons, whose shares in the same were left to the discretion of the person to whom the gift was made."

The jury returned a verdict for the defendant; and the plaintiff alleged exceptions.

Exceptions sustained.

W. E. Fuller, for the plaintiff.

J. M. Morton, Jr., for the defendant.

Endicott, J. Lord & Soule, JJ., absent.

OPINION

Endicott, J.

We have no doubt that a deposit in a savings bank may be the subject matter of a valid donatio causa mortis, and the gift may be proved by the delivery of the bank book representing the deposit, accompanied by an assignment to the donee. As a gift inter vivos, it vests a complete title in the donee at once; as a gift in contemplation of death, the title is complete on the death of the donor. As between the parties, the delivery of the book and assignment is all the delivery of which the subject is capable. Such a delivery may be consistent with other purposes; but if it is clear, upon the evidence, that the donor intended by the act and in contemplation of death, to make the gift to the donee as a final disposition of the property, it is a good donatio causa mortis. Grover v. Grover, 24 Pick. 261. Sessions v. Moseley, 4 Cush. 87. ...