Court Opinion

ID: 9752443
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-28 18:08:16.645703+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:27:16.249547
License: Public Domain

ROBERTS, Justice,
dissenting.
This record is clear that appellant-claimant Mary Drabik’s “signature” appeared on the bank’s signature card only by the decedent’s act of tracing her name on the card. Thus inapposite is the rule that “[introduction into evidence of a duly executed joint account signature card shifts the burden of proof to those who seek to bar enforcement of the survivorship terms of the writing and they must meet that burden with clear, precise and convincing evidence.” Bowser Estate, 485 Pa. 209, 212, 401 A.2d 733, 734 (1979). Accord, e. g., Lux Estate, 480 Pa. 256, 389 A.2d 1053 (1979).
Nonetheless, in the absence of statutory or case law authority, the majority places upon appellee-executrix the burden to show by “clear, precise and convincing evidence” that the savings account of decedent Alfred Sipe belongs in decedent’s estate. Surely, as every estate practitioner and orphans’ court judge must know, the majority has misplaced the burden of proof. Until today, it has been black-letter law in the Commonwealth that where, as here, no duly executed signature card exists, “[a] claim of a gift inter vivos against the estate of the dead must be supported by clear and convincing evidence: Leadenham’s Est., 289 Pa. 216 [, 137 A. 247]; Brightbill v. Boeshore, 385 Pa. 69 [, 122 A.2d 38.]” Hunter, III Pennsylvania Orphans’ Court Commonplace Book § 2(a) (1959). Accord, e. g., Sivak Estate, 409 Pa. 261, 185 A.2d 778 (1967); Scanlon Estate, 25 Fid.Rep. 33 (Mont.), aff’d, 464 Pa. 236, 346 A.2d 303 (1975).
*134That burden has in no respect been met. The absence of appellant-claimant’s own valid signature makes it clear that delivery did not occur. The signature card embodying the contract between the bank and its depositor appears below.

Clearly appellant-claimant did not sign the signature card. Therefore, she was not an “undersigned” entitled to withdraw from the account.
“The essence of delivery of a gift is relinquishment by the donor of dominion and control of the subject matter of the gift. See Brown, Personal Property § 39 (1955).” Wagner v. Wagner, 466 Pa. 532, 539, 353 A.2d 819, 822 (1976). With only decedent’s sham, traced “signature” of appellant’s name on the bank’s card, the bank had every legal right to refuse to pay appellant the savings account funds. Decedent, therefore, was at all times exercising complete control over the funds and appellant was never in a position to *135exercise dominion. On a record failing to disclose a completed gift inter vivos, nothing could have passed to appellant. See Scanlon Estate, supra. As the Orphans’ Court Division of the Court of Common Pleas of Allegheny County concluded, “no joint account ever existed. [Appellant] never signed the signature card. The alleged agreement between the two joint owners and the bank failed because one of the joint owners never became a party to it.” These findings are uncontradicted on the record and may not be disturbed.
The decree of the orphans’ court, which properly applied well-settled legal standards and gave appropriate weight to all the facts, correctly rejected the claim of appellant to the savings account of decedent. Its decree should now be affirmed, just as it should have been affirmed on the first argument of this case thirteen months ago.
O’BRIEN, C. J., joins this dissenting opinion.