21 N.Y.S. 300 | N.Y. Sup. Ct. | 1892
Eliza Grey died, intestate, in Queens county on, the 22d day of April, 1891. She left a mother and brothers and sisters. She was a woman of about 65 years of age. She was a healthy woman up to the week before her death. She had lived for three years- and over with the plaintiff, who was a niece of the deceased. The-estate of the deceased amounted to about $8,000, almost entirety represented by savings bank books in three savings hanks. This action is. brought by the plaintiff to recover the amount on deposit in the South-old Savings Bank, and is based upon a title alleged to have been obtained by gift from the deceased on the Friday before her death. She died on the following Wednesday. The gift is claimed to have included the three books and the deposits shown upon them. The claim of title is supported by evidence of two separate transactions,— one on Friday before her death, at which the plaintiff alone was present, and the other o.n the following Monday night, at which the plaintiff and her husband and her husband’s brother were present. This, transaction purported to have been a repetition of the one of Friday preceding. The plaintiff testifies that the deceased went to bed on. Friday. About 5 o’clock in the afternoon, and just alter she had taken to her bed, she took out of a pocket in her flannel petticoat the three books, and gave them to her. That deceased was in the habit of wearing this flannel petticoat, and kept the books there. The deceased said not a word about her health. She had said nothing about giving the books before this. The plaintiff subsequently stated that she knew nothing of the books before deceased produced them. On the second occasion the plaintiff says that deceased told her to get the books, which, she did, Irom her own room, and that deceased then said, calling upon plaintiff’s husband’s brother: “I give these books to Lizzie in the presence of you. I want you to be a witness to it.” If the books were given on Friday, they were not the property of deceased on Monday. The plaintiff testifies that on the second occasion she put the books