Olson v. Washington

BISHOP, J.,

pro

tem.

With the pleadings serving as a point of departure, this case was tried as an interpleader action. The bone of contention was the proceeds of a bank account, of more than $2,000, standing jointly with the right of survivorship in the names of Miss Sophie Olson, now deceased, and Anna Washington, the appellant. The rival claimants to the fund were appellant and the plaintiff in intervention, Security-First National Bank of Los Angeles, as executor appointed in the estate of Miss Olson. The appellant’s claim was based on the fact that she was the survivor of the joint tenants. The position taken by the executor was that, prior to August 7, 1935, the fund had been in the name of the deceased alone, and that it was only through the undue influence of the appellant that the joint account was created. A reversal of the judgment, awarding the proceeds of the account to the executor, is sought on the two grounds that the complaint in intervention does not state, and the evidence does not reveal, sufficient facts respecting the use of undue influence to warrant the finding of its existence. We are of the opinion that the evidence is sufficient, and that the judgment is not to be reversed because of any deficiency in the complaint.

It must be admitted that there is very slight, if any, direct evidence that any word or act of appellant influenced the deceased to withdraw her money from her own account and place it in the joint names of appellant and herself. Direct evidence, however, is not indispensable. As stated in

[87]

Estate of Ramey,

(1923) 62 Cal. App. 413, 426 [217 Pac. 135], undue influence can hardly ever be shown in any way other than by circumstantial evidence.

In

Longmire

v.

Kruger,

(1926) 80 Cal. App. 230 [251 Pac. 692, 696], a deed was canceled upon the ground that it had been procured by undue influence. Two circumstances, having their parallel in our case, were pointed to as having significance. The fact that the grantee did not record the deed until its existence became known was stated to be “a suspicious circumstance which tends to indicate guilty conscience of unfair means resorted to in procuring the instrument”, citing