Mook v. Akron Savings & Loan Co.

Citations

• 87 Ohio St. (N.S.) 273

Syllabus

<p>Supreme court not to weigh evidence, when — Certificates of stock in building and loan company — Made testamentary gift to granddaughter — To be held in trust — Trustee for personal use pledged trust stock — Loaning company charged with notice of trust— And regarded a party to breach of trusteeship — Liability and law of trusteeship.</p> <p>1. - Where the evidence is chiefly documentary, decisive and not conflicting, the court has only to declare its probative effect, not to weigh it.</p> <p>2. M. C. invested money in stock of a building and loan company, took the certificates in the name of her granddaughter thirteen years old, with a parenthetic clause after the name “(M. C. or other legal guardian may draw)” and she retained possession of them. Held: This was an inchoate gift in trust for the granddaughter, to be followed, as later events disclosed, by a testamentary designation of the purpose and limitation of the trust.</p> <p>3. Shortly thereafter the grandmother died, leaving a will, wherein she named her lawyer R. as executor (without bond) and trustee of the property she should die possessed of, for the use and benefit of the granddaughter. She gave to her executor all moneys held by her in trust for the granddaughter, declaring in the will her intention to make her executor her successor in said trust, to hold for the granddaughter and pay to her or for her benefit the income, till she be thirty years old. The executor qualified as such, having in his possession the certificates which the testatrix placed in his hands, and he sent the company a copy of the will, with notice that he held the certificates under the will, and requested that dividends be paid to him as trustee. Thereafter he borrowed money from the company for his personal use, pledging the certificates as collateral security, and cancelled and turned in some for cash, signing the transfers and the written pledges as trustee. He squandered the money and died insolvent. Held: The company was