Union Trust Co. v. Hutchison

VICKERY, J. “Now we apprehend that, notwithstanding 710-20 GC., if a fund was deposited in a joint account in a bank, and, before the survivor had drawn the money, if the heirs at law or those who would have been entitled to inherit but for this joint account, would have protested to the bank not to pay this sum of money, we think then and in that event, notwithstanding the statute, the bank would have paid this money at its peril, and, if the title had not passed by contract other than the relation between the parties, the statute itself would not have passed the title. In the instant case the answer does not allege that any protest was made to the payment of this fund or any part of it. That then brings us squarely to the rule laid down by the Supreme Court in the case of The Cleveland Tr. Co. v. Scobie, 114 OS. 241. As I understand that ease, it holds that where a fund has been deposited in the joint names of two parties, even though all the fund, as it was in the Scobie case, had theretofore been the property of the depositor, the intention appearing that his co-depositor had the right to withdraw any or all during the life of the depositor, even though the depositor had the right to change his mind as to any or all of that portion of the fund which had not been withdrawn by either party from the joint account, at his death, it would pass to and vest in his survivor. This we understand to be the rule laid down in the Scobie case, and if that be the law of the Scobie case, there is a much stronger case where the sürvivor is permitted to withdraw after the death of the co-depositor in the instant case, for, as it appears in the record of this case, as already stated, the money deposited in the joint account was a joint fund and had accumulated from the joint property of the joint depositors, and the title to at least one-half of the property involved was already in the joint depositor who survived the other depositor. None of these things existed in the Scobie case, and so the instant case is a much stronger case than the Scobie case. We, therefore, think that the court below committed no error in sustaining the demurrer to the answer.” (Sullivan, PJ., and Levine, J., concur.)