Court Opinion

ID: 9448253
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-03 23:28:26.758901+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:31:20.776445
License: Public Domain

PRETTYMAN, Circuit Judge
(dissenting) .
The clear purpose of the Act “[t]o safeguard the estates of veterans derived from payments of pension,” etc.,1 is to make these benefit payments available for use in the current maintenance and support of the veteran, without interference by taxes or creditors. Consistent with this principle the courts have held that so long as the payments remain as a bank deposit they are immune from outside absorption;2 but, when they pass into the form of investments in land or buildings (which would indicate they are not currently needed), they lose their immunity. Thus, to my mind, the cases clearly implement the basic Congressional purpose.
In the case at bar the benefit payments were deposited in “Savings Aceount[s]” with federal savings and loan associations. This was not a disposition which made the funds difficult of availability for current purposes. The majority opinion points to rules of the associations requiring 30 days’ notice for withdrawal, but at least one of them advertises (Ex. C) that since its organization in 1907 its practice has been to pay withdrawals promptly upon demand; indeed my understanding (which is such common understanding that I can take judicial notice of the fact) is that no such asso*393ciation in Washington requires such notice. In respect to ordinary savings accounts banks generally reserve a right to demand 30 or 60 days’ notice,3 but as a matter of custom the depositor can withdraw upon demand. Needs for current maintenance and support are not necessarily steady in amount month by month; such needs fluctuate; savings from the monthly income for several months may be accumulated to meet a recurrent need; a suit of clothes, potential doctors’ bills, repairs to a home are a few examples from many familiar items. And in the case before us there are the potential needs of rehabilitation.
Of course the nature of some dispositions of funds is clear; purchases of land, stocks, etc., on the one hand and regular cheeking accounts in banks on the other. It seems to me that the facts surrounding the deposits we have here would be material, even dispositive, in the case. On the naked legalisms they might be one or the other. On the facts their nature might clearly appear. Thus, if they had been left on deposit for a long time while current needs were met by other funds, or if their accumulation were much in excess of current needs (including a reasonable auxiliary reserve for contingencies), the deposits might clearly appear to be investments. But, if the facts were that these deposits were periodically used for current needs, or if they were actually so needed and were available and the committee intended so to use them, their nature as current deposits might clearly appear. Deposits in these associations may, as a bare legal matter, be one or the other.
I would not decide this case upon niceties of legalisms as to a “deposit” and an “investment”. I would decide it on the broad intention of the statute, as construed by the courts, and the plain, simple facts of the case. Here the committee put part of the benefit payments in accounts in financial institutions where by practice they are readily available, meantime accumulating a small interest, surely as many a prudent person living on periodical payments would do; and now the committee says he wants to, and would, withdraw the funds for purposes of maintenance and support of the veteran.
The committee before us claims he can prove by documentary evidence that he actually needs, and would use, these funds to meet a bill already rendered him for current subsistence of this veteran.
I would remand the case for a factual determination of the nature of these deposits, i. e., current deposits or investments in the sense in which the Supreme Court used that term in the Lawrence case.4 I suppose the burden of proof should be on the committee, since he alone has the requisite information.

. 49 Stat. 607 (1935).

. E. g., Lawrence v. Shaw, 1937, 300 U.S. 245, 57 S.Ct. 443, 81 L.Ed. 623.

. See Mallett v. Tunnicliffe, 1931, 102 Fla. 809, 136 So. 346, 137 So. 238, 80 A.L.R. 785.

. Supra note 2.