Windolph v. Girard Trust Co.

Citations

• 245 Pa. 349
• 91 A. 634
• 1914 Pa. LEXIS 882

Syllabus

<p>Gifts — Gifts inter vivos — Deed of Trust — Wife’s power over her personal property — Bights of husband — Fraud—Gifts testamentary in character — Equity.</p> <p>1. Under the present legislation in Pennsylvania, a wife has the same power of disposal, of her personal estate during coverture that her husband has of his personal property and she can create a valid trust of her separate personal estate by deed of trust during her life without the joinder or consent of her husband.</p> <p>2. If a gift by a husband or wife during the donor’s life is absolute and accompanied by a transfer of possession with intent to divest the donor of ownership, although the obvious effect is to defeat the husband’s or wife’s succession to the property at the donor’s death, the gift is not fraudulent and therefore invalid.</p> <p>3. The good faith required of a donor or settlor in making a valid disposition of such donor’s property during life does not refer to the purpose to affect the wife or husband hut to the intent to divest the donor of the ownership of the property.</p> <p>4. A married woman made a deed of trust naming as trustee her mother with a provision for the substitution of a trust company in case of the mother’s death unless the settlor should appoint another successor. The deed conveyed a part of the settlor’s separate personal estate to the trustee in trust to collect the income and pay it to the settlor for life, and after her death to pay an annuity to her husband so long as he remained unmarried, an annuity to a niece, the balance of the income to the trustee herself, and after her death the balance of the income equally to two brothers of the settlor, on their death to their issue and a part to charity, and if no minor issue of the brothers should survive them, then the entire estate to charity. The deed gave the trustee power to change investments, but not to invest in other than legal securities except during the life of the settlor, without her consent in writin