Spear v. Farwell

[112]

EDMONDS, J.,

pro tem.

Plaintiff: had judgment against Lyman Farwell in an action brought solely against him upon a promissory note. Thereafter, execution was issued and levied upon a bank account standing in the names of Lyman Farwell and Flora Howes Farwell, his wife, as joint tenants. Mrs. Farwell filed with the sheriff her third party claim to the money as being her sole property in which her husband had no interest. Upon a hearing in response to plaintiff’s motion to determine title to the money, the superior court made its order finding that Mrs. Farwell was the owner of the bank deposit and releasing it from the claims and demands of the plaintiff. From this order plaintiff appeals.

Over objection of the plaintiff, Mrs. Farwell was allowed to testify that prior to 1924 she had a bank account in her own name; that in May of that year she went to the bank and asked a teller what kind of a card she and her husband could sign whereby her husband could draw on the account in the event of her death. She testified that she explained to the teller that she had quite a household to manage and she wanted it to be possible, if anything happened to her, that there would be money to run the household until her estate could be settled. Mr. Farwell was present at this conversation. Thereupon, Mrs. Farwell testified, the bank teller prepared a new signature card and deposit agreement which she and Mr. Farwell signed. According to her testimony she and Mr. Farwell signed the new “card” in the belief that it would only allow Mr. Farwell to check on the account after her death. The balance then standing to her individual credit at the bank was on the same day transferred by it to the new account.

The deposit agreement signed by Mr. and Mrs. Farwell recites “that all sums now on deposit or hereafter deposited by the undersigned, or either of them, to the credit of the undersigned with said bank in this savings account, are and shall be owned by the undersigned as joint tenants (and not as tenants in common), with full right of survivorship but be subject to order of or withdrawal by either, or the survivor of either”.

The evidence shows without contradiction that all of the money standing to Mrs. Farwell’s individual credit at the bank and transferred to the joint account, and also all money