Court Opinion

ID: 9702414
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 23:10:44.199334+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:21:37.309054
License: Public Domain

Dissenting Opinion by
Mr. Justice Bell :
I disagree not with the principles set forth in the majority opinion, but with their application to the facts in the instant case. Decedent on November 10, .1952 gave Miss Laier (to whom he stood in loco parentis) a check for §55,000. as a gift to be divided equally between herself and her brother who was a minor. He told her “he might possibly ask for some of the money *568back”. She deposited the check not in his bank account or in a joint bank account but in her own bank account. That was a valid delivery and constituted a valid gift subject to revocation by the donor. The motive of the donor is, at least as far as this case is concerned, immaterial. It is an indisputable fact (a) that there was a valid delivery to Miss Laier and (b) that she always retained this money in her sole and exclusive possession. The point overlooked by the majority is that this was not a debt. It was money which, we repeat, Miss Laier had in her own exclusive possession, in her own bank account.
On July 4, 1953, decedent asked Miss Laier to give him back $20,000. which she did; and the remaining portion he told her was to be divided between her brother and herself. She was engaged to be married, and he told her “It was a wedding gift and he wanted my brother to have a share, too; because whatever he did for me he wanted my brother to have just as much, and I accepted it on the basis of a wedding gift.” This constituted a valid irrevocable inter vivos gift to Miss Laier and her brother; there was donative intent, an actual delivery by donor and exclusive possession by Miss Laier. This was not a debt, or a release of a debt owing by the donee to the donor; it was not, as implied by the majority, a gift of a mere chose in action as that designation is used by the cases — it was an absolute unconditional gift of $35,000 dollars, all of which was in the possession of the donee. As the majority opinion says: “.Delivery in this as in every other case must be according to the nature of a thing. It must be an actual delivery, so far as the subject is capable of delivery ... If the thing be not capable of actual delivery, there must be some act equivalent to it.” The majority opinion admits that the decedent had a donative intent on July 4, 1953; and the facts clearly demonstrate, we *569repeat, that there was an actual delivery to donee and actual and exclusive possession by donee of the $35,000.* in controversy.
I would affirm the decree of the lower Court.

 Testator’s widow by electing to take against the will inherited a substantial estate, entirely apart from the $17,500. which she seeks herein to obtain.