Court Opinion

ID: 9792109
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 02:23:14.549811+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:37:40.592994
License: Public Domain

HENRIOD, Justice
(concurring in part and dissenting in part).
I concur in result as to the $38,404.45 item. This was money previously in decedent’s sole account which defendant induced him to put in a joint account just prior to his death, during a period when the decedent was suffering from acute senile dementia. I am convinced that undue influence clearly was exercised upon a dying man, too tired, sick or mentally afflicted to fight back. Under accepted rules of appellate review we should make such a finding and determine this case on the ground of an exercise of such undue influence. I am of that opinion particularly since Mr. Demiris did not change his will during this period shortly prior to his death, and also because of the fact that when he was under no mental illness whatever, and after defendant had induced him to change his will substantially reducing bequests to blood relatives to the distinct advantage of defendant, decedent on the very next morning secretly prepared and executed another will which restored such omitted bequests.
As to the joint accounts and the joint defense bonds that had been in existence for many years, I am in agreement with the main opinion’s determination, since there is no evidence of undue influence in their creation, and none of tortious withdrawal.
I suggest that Mr. Chief Justice Crockett’s opinion contains several fallacies and inconsistencies in its attempt to support sole ownership of the $38,404.45 in the deceased, which amount I consider to have been wheedled out of an ailing senile man.
1. The main opinion concludes that “we do not say that the evidence so preponderates against the trial court’s refusal to find that the decedent was incompetent or a vie-*411tim of undue influence that the finding should be reversed.” It then rejects the trial court’s obvious conclusion that Mrs. Demiris did not withdraw the money wrongfully. It now volunteers for the purpose of this case that “it seems indisputable that defendant’s act of grabbing the money * * * was a wrongful act that should not be rewarded.” The preponderance of the evidence is no more evident in the one conclusion than in the other, and for this court now to accept the trial court’s determination that there was no undue influence in the deposit but to conclude that there was a wrongful withdrawal a few days later is an unexplainable, unwarranted inconsistency. Furthermore, it makes meaningless and but a devotional lip service to say elsewhere in the opinion that “in reviewing the findings of fact we should indulge considerable latitude to the findings of the trial court and not disturb them unless the evidence clearly preponderates to the contrary.” Why do it one place and not the other ?
2. The main opinion attempts to distinguish Holt v. Bayles, cited therein, from the instant case on the ground that where the money is drawn out by one joint tenant after the death of the other there is a presumption that may produce an entirely different result. If the money is withdrawn five minutes after instead of five minutes before such death, the presumption oper.ates. It says that there is a “presumption * * * that such money passed 'to the surviving joint tenant.” It justifies such presumption upon the “necessity of some certainty in dealing with such accounts,” There would seem to be just as much neces- ■ sity for certainty in dealing with estates whether the money is withdrawn before or after death. And the surrogate court case cited in the main opinion is not dispositive here since it has to do with a statutory presumption and stands only for the proposition that absent such statute withdrawal from a joint account permits introduction of proof that no joint account ever was created. It simply said that the statutory presumption created by the Banking Law vests an existing joint account conclusively in the survivor, but that it did not apply to the situation where the withdrawal was effected before the death of one of the joint depositors. Aside from the statutory presumption created in the one situation and not the other, it is difficult for this writer to follow the reasoning of the main opinion that it is necessary to have a presumption to create certainty in dealing with the estates in the one situation, but not the other.
3. The basis for the decision, that the deposit was made “for his convenience in the face of the exigency that he had to go to the hospital” and thus was not intended to be a joint tenancy, flies in the teeth of reality and the practicalities of this case. At the time of the deposit, the decedent and his wife had $43,000 in joint, liquid, *412cashable and withdrawable funds, including a $9,000 war bond. It is hardly likely and quite unbelievable to me that another $38,-000 would be needed to take care of the exigencies of Demiris’ attendance at a hospital which proved to be the scene of his last illness.
The case should be decided on the ground Mrs. Demiris exercised undue influence on Mr. Demiris, and that as a consequence thereof the $38,000 was a part of his estate irrespective of whether she drew it out before or after his death, and irrespective of any rightful or wrongful intent on Mrs. Demiris’ part.