Opinion
March 18, 1971
Decree, Surrogate's Court, Bronx County, entered on April 5, 1968, in this proceeding to settle the account of the Public Administrator of Bronx County, dismissing objectants' claim that they are entitled to the proceeds of three bank accounts by reason of a gift causa mortis from the deceased, unanimously reversed, on the law and on the facts, without costs and without disbursements, and objectants' claim sustained. All of the elements of a valid gift causa mortis of the bankbooks from decedent to objectants, his stepsons, were established by competent, clear, convincing and satisfactory proof. ( McKeon v. Van Slyck, 223 N.Y. 392.) Such a gift need not be established beyond all suspicion. ( Matter of Pernisi, 285 App. Div. 1006, affd. 1 N.Y.2d 651.) From the witnesses' testimony as to decedent's declarations and the close and intimate family relationship which existed between decedent and his stepsons "and by application of inferences of fact which arise therefrom and from ordinary human experience, the donees have in this case sufficiently established the elements of a valid gift of the bank accounts to them". ( Matter of Rinchiuso, 20 A.D.2d 254, 255, affd. 15 N.Y.2d 865.) Here the objectants' proof was uncontroverted, unimpeached, uncontradicted "and is not opposed to the probabilities nor in its nature suspicious or surprising. There is no reason for not accepting it". ( Matter of Kinch, 33 A.D.2d 221, 223.) Such proof should not have been so lightly disregarded by the Surrogate. Certainly, on the basis of the evidence adduced as to the prior history of the deceased and the objectants, it can be reasonably concluded that the latter would be the natural objects of the deceased's bounty.
Concur — Stevens, P.J., Capozzoli, McGivern, Nunez and McNally, JJ.