Public-domain · open source
OpenJurist

149 Mass. 12

Fearing v. Jones

Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court · decided 1889-03-01

Bill in EQUITY by the administrator of the estate of Perez Cushing, to recover certain personal property of the intestate claimed by the defendant as a gift mortis causa from the intestate to her. Trial in the Superior Court, upon issues to a jury, before Dunbar, J., who ordered a verdict for the plaintiff; and the defendant alleged exceptions. The material facts are in the opinion.

Cited by 4 later decisions — most recently December 1927

4 state decisions

Relies on Cutting v. Gilman · Waring v. Edmonds

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1889-03-01

View the full empirical analysis of this case →

Holmes, J.

¶1The evidence relied on to show a donatio causa mortis by Cushing to the defendant is as follows. Cushing boarded with the defendant, his wife was in an insane hospital, and he had quarrelled with his daughters. Two days before his death, he said to the defendant in his room, “ I did hope to live to see the end of my wife.” The defendant replied, “ What shall I do if anything happens to you ? ” Cushing said, “ Go for Cole, the undertaker; have me buried with the money from the Mechanic Association; and do as you please with what I have.” There was no ceremony of delivery of any articles. Most of the property was present in Cushing’s room, and all of it was in the defendant’s house; but it does not appear that she attempted to intermeddle with it in any way before Cushing’s death.

¶2The words used did not purport to make a present gift, but looked only to the future, and to what shopld be done when Cushing died. As the language did not express a gift, it could not warrant the inference that there was a delivery without further overt acts on either side, even if such an inference might be drawn from different language, coupled with the ambiguous situation of the property. See Waring v. Edmonds, 11 Md. 424; Cutting v. Gilman, 41 N. H. 147. There was no other evidence of delivery, as the defendant did not touch the property in Cushing’s lifetime. Both elements of a donatio causa mortis, words of present gift and delivery, are wanting. There is no occasion, therefore, to reconsider, as we are asked to do, the statement in Marshall v. Berry, 13 Allen, 43, 46, that an attempt to dispose of the donor’s whole estate, as distinguished from specific articles capable of passing by delivery, is void.

¶3Exceptions overruled.

/149/mass/12 · .json · Public domain