Oldfield's Estate

Citations

• 72 Pa. Super. 340
• 1919 Pa. Super. LEXIS 311

Syllabus

<p>Decedents’ estates — Gifts—Money in savings banks — Completion of transfer — Gifts causa mortis.</p> <p>A transfer by a decedent, two days prior to his death, of a sum of money in a savings bank, cannot be regarded as a gift causa mortis, where the check drawn on the bank was not for the full amount of the fund, and was not payable until some weeks subsequent to the death of the maker, and the bank book was not surrendered, as was required under the rules of the institution to effect the transfer. In such ease the gift cannot be said to have been consummated and, therefore, did not pass title to the fund. ■</p> <p>Savings bank account — Equitable assignment — Sufficiency.</p> <p>The signing of a check, to take effect at some subsequent date, and without the surrender of the depositor’s bank book, which was required by the rules of the bank, was not such a transfer as would constitute an equitable assignment of the amount of the check to the claimant, vesting in her a then present title to that fund, which would have been good against the decedent himself had he been restored to health, or against his creditor who might have attempted to seize it.</p> <p>Where the money in bank was not an ordinary deposit, subject to payment by cheek, and could be drawn by the owner only after compliance with certain conditions precedent, such as notice in writing for a prescribed length of time and the svirrender of the bankbook, the mere signing of the cheek was not sufficient to create an equitable assignment of the fund, and the claim must be dismissed for lack of some of the essentials required by the law to support it.</p>