Poole v. Poole

Citations

• 96 Kan. 84
• 150 P. 592
• 1915 Kan. LEXIS 317

Syllabus

<p>SYLLABUS BY THE COURT.</p> <p>1. Gifts — Personal Property of Husband — Right of Disposition. The general rule is that the law has placed no restriction or limitation on the husband’s right to make such disposition of his personal property during his lifetime as he may elect.</p> <p>2. Gifts — Colorable Gifts by Husband — Interest in Property Reserved— Invalid as against Widow. Where the transfer or gift is colorable and there is a voluntary transfer or conveyance by which the husband reserves to himself an interest in or a power to dispose of the property, it may be declared void as against the widow and she may participate in its distribution upon the theory that the title still remained in the husband at his death. •</p> <p>3. Gifts — Binding upon Grantor — Binding upon His Heirs. A widow sued as an heir of her deceased husband to set aside gifts and transfers of personal property made by him to the defendants, who are his sons by a former marriage. The transfers were made without the wife’s knowledge, when the husband was 83 years of age and possessed of no other property, and immediately following the dismissal of an .action brought by her for separate maintenance, that action having been settled upon his conveying to her certain real estate and agreeing to pay her a monthly allowance. The court found that he made the gifts and transfers to his sons in anticipation that he would not live long and to prevent the plaintiff from inheriting a share in the property as his widow, and in the further anticipation of the probability that the resumption of the marriage relation with plaintiff would not last long or be .permanent and that she might separate from him and bring another action for alimony or divorce, and to defeat her right to a division of his property, held, following Small v. Small, 56 Kan. i, 42 Pac. 323, 30 L. R. A. 243, 54 Am. St. Rep. 581, that the gifts to the sons not being colorable but absolute transfers of the'title to the property, binding up