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55 Vt. 325

Fletcher v. Fletcher

Supreme Court of Vermont

Decided January 15, 1883

Supreme Court of Vermont · decided 1883-01-15

Trespass. Plea, general issue. Trial by jury, December Term, 1882, Powers, J., presiding. Verdict for plaintiff. The plaintiff claimed title to the covered carriage by virtue of an oral gift from her father, and that the gift was made on the 3d day of August, 1876. The defendant claimed that her father subsequently gave and delivered the carriage to him. The plaintiff and her brother Joseph lived with, and constituted a part of, the family of their father, James Fletcher.

Relies on Kellogg v. Adams · Harris v. Hopkins

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1883-01-15

How this case has been cited

Cited by 6 later decisions — most recently June 1941

6 state decisions

201883189019001910192019301940decided

Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

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¶1The opinion of .the court was delivered by

Veazey, J.

¶2The testimony of the plaintiff tended to show a completed gift of the carriage in question. Under the facts stated there was no necessity of a visible presence or laying on of hands to constitute a delivery. In case of a carriage situated as this was, if there is a declaration of the gift in plain terms, and a sur*328render and acceptance of dominion, it is sufficient. Ross & Wife v. Draper,* Franklin County, January Term, 1883 ; 1 Parsons Con. p. 201; 1 Bouvier, L. D. 633; 2 Kent’s Com. 439; Martrick v. Linfield, 21 Pick. 325 ; Kellogg v. Adams, 51 Wis. 138 ; s. c. 37 Am. Rep.; Harris v. Hopkins, 43 Mich. 272 ; s. c. 38 Am. Rep. 180.

¶3Therefore the defendant was not entitled to have his request to charge granted, which was to instruct the jury that upon the facts the alleged gift was invalid and ineffectual to vest any title in the plaintiff for want of sufficient delivery and acceptance. Her testimony tended to show both elements of a complete gift, viz., delivery and acceptance ; and was sufficient to deprive the defendant of the right to have a verdict directed for him, but was not of that conclusive character that would have warranted the court to direct a verdict for the plaintiff. As the charge is reported in the bill of exceptions, it seems to us to have been limited to the element of delivery, without submitting the question of acceptance. Under this construction there was error. If the subject of the gift is certain, there must still be. the mutual consent and concurrent will of both parties. Kent’s Com. vol. 2, 438. It does not appear that the plaintiff expressly, signified her acceptance of the gift when alleged to have been made ; but her subsequent acts tended to show an acceptance before any revocation by the donor. The question of acceptance as well as delivery was, therefore, an open one to be passed upon by the jury.

¶4. Judgment reversed and new trial granted.

¶5Ross and Wife v. Diaper, post.

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