Monell v. College of Physicians & Surgeons

198 Cal. App. 2d 38, 17 Cal. Rptr. 744, 1961 Cal. App. LEXIS 2504
CourtCalifornia Court of Appeal
DecidedDecember 14, 1961
DocketCiv. 19669
StatusPublished
Cited by19 cases

This text of 198 Cal. App. 2d 38 (Monell v. College of Physicians & Surgeons) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering California Court of Appeal primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Monell v. College of Physicians & Surgeons, 198 Cal. App. 2d 38, 17 Cal. Rptr. 744, 1961 Cal. App. LEXIS 2504 (Cal. Ct. App. 1961).

Opinion

SULLIVAN, J.

Theodore M. Monell has appealed on a single record from separate judgments in two actions which were consolidated for trial. One action (No. 487816) is by appellant against respondent college for declaratory relief; the other (No. 487835) is by respondent college against appellant for the recovery of money. On respondent’s motion the two actions were ordered consolidated for trial. The court after a nonjury trial made separate findings of fact and conclusions of law and rendered separate judgments for each action. In action No. 487816 the court rendered judgment to the effect that a certain alleged oral trust contended by appel *41 lant to have been created by Kenneth I. Nesbitt in his lifetime was invalid and unenforceable and the disbursement by appellant of the sum of $10,484.44 on the claim of the existence of such trust was improper. In action No. 487835 the court rendered judgment in favor of respondent and against appellant in the sum of $10,484.44.

The record discloses the following facts. 1 Appellant was the attorney for Dr. Kenneth I. Nesbitt, a former member of the faculty of respondent college, who died in San Francisco on April 17, 1956. The will and two codicils of Dr. Nesbitt were thereafter admitted to probate by the Superior Court of the City and County of San Francisco and the Crocker-Anglo National Bank appointed executor. Appellant became the attorney for the executor. Under the provisions of the decedent’s will, the respondent college, a nonprofit educational corporation, was designated residuary devisee and legatee and the recipient of the major portion of the estate.

While Dr. Nesbitt was a patient at St. Joseph’s Hospital in San Francisco and about two weeks before his death, he signed and delivered to appellant a letter addressed to the Bank of America, N.T. & S.A., Powell-Post Branch, San Francisco, authorizing appellant to make withdrawals on appellant’s signature from the savings account maintained by the doctor at said bank. On April 5, 1956, on this authorization, appellant withdrew $2,500 from the doctor’s savings account and with said funds opened a checking account in appellant’s name alone at the same bank. Although the cheeking account was not designated a trustee account on the bank’s records, the signature card bore the typed notation “account set up for expenses of Dr. Nesbitt,” and all checks subsequently drawn on the account, though signed by appellant individually, bore a stamp on their face “Theodore M. Monell, Trustee.”

Mr. Monell testified that the above checking account was opened at Dr. Nesbitt’s request to pay the latter’s hospital and nursing bills and with the further oral instructions that in the event of the doctor’s death any balance in the account was to go to the doctor’s fiancee Velma Price. Appellant testified *42 that the doctor said to him: “I want you to pay the nursing bills and the hospital bills as we go along. I’ll either okay them, or Velma will okay them ... if I should pass away, I want you to divide the account with Velma.” Mr. Monell testified that he refused to have any part of the account, whereupon the doctor said to him: “Well, then, any balance that is left, pay it over to Velma” and that appellant responded: “That will be satisfactory. That can be done as a trust and I will hold the funds for the payment of these bills okayed by you or by Mrs. Price.”

On April 13, 1956, four days before Dr. Nesbitt’s death, under the same written authorization of Dr. Nesbitt, appellant withdrew the sum of $10,000 from the doctor’s savings account and deposited said sum in the aforementioned checking account. Appellant testified that this was done at the request of the doctor who told appellant that he expected to remain in the hospital for an additional two or three months and that appellant “better have some more money.” According to appellant Dr. Nesbitt told him: “It doesn’t make any difference, it will be subject to my call when I get out of here,” and appellant replied: “Well, that’s all right with me. . . . That will be upon the same conditions: I will pay-bills approved by Mrs. Price, and if anything happens to you, if you pass away, then any balance outstanding at that time, less any nursing bills that are then outstanding, will be paid to her; is that correct?” and Dr. Nesbitt responded: “Yes, that’s right.”

The two deposits in the checking account totalled $12,500. Between April 5, 1956, when the account was opened, and April 13, 1956, the date of the second deposit, appellant drew 13 checks totalling $1,303.56 in payment of various expenses of Dr. Nesbitt. On April 13, 1956, appellant drew a check payable to appellant in the sum of $547.22, representing payment of appellant’s fee of $500 in a property matter, together with $47.22 costs which appellant testified Dr. Nesbitt had instructed him to pay. The remaining nine checks drawn on the account were dated April 20, 1956, three days after Dr. Nesbitt’s death. The parties, however, agreed at the trial that at the death of Dr. Nesbitt the unused balance of the account was $10,484.44. A check representing this balance, and closing the account, was drawn on April 20, 1956, payable to Velma Price.

*43 Although Mrs. Price apparently knew that Dr. Nesbitt had delivered money to appellant for the purpose of paying the doctor’s bills, she did not learn until after the doctor’s death that she was to receive the unused balance of the checking account. On April 26, 1956, with funds provided by the aforementioned $10,484.44 check to her order, Mrs. Price purchased two cashier’s checks at the same branch of the Bank of America, one payable to appellant in the sum of $5,000, and one payable to herself for the remainder of $5,484.44. Appellant testified that he received the $5,000 cashier’s check and that previously he had told Mrs. Price she had no liability to make any such payment.

On October 18, 1957, a decree of final distribution was made and entered in the Estate of Kenneth I. Nesbitt under the terms of which all of the residue of his estate was distributed to respondent. Although appellant was attorney for the estate during the course of its administration, he failed to advise the executor of the creation of any oral trust by the decedent, and, as a result, the transaction was never reported either for federal estate tax or California inheritance tax purposes. The matter came to the attention of the executor in September 1958, during an audit of the decedent’s federal estate tax return, as a result of which the examining agent treated the transaction as a taxable transfer and proposed to assess a deficiency.

On March 23, 1959, appellant commenced the present action for declaratory relief against respondent college alleging the death of Kenneth I. Nesbitt, the admission of his will to probate, the distribution of the residue of his estate to the respondent college, and that said decedent had during his lifetime delivered the sum of $12,500 to appellant as trustee to pay decedent’s hospital bills, with further oral instructions to pay any balance remaining of the funds to Velma Price, in the event of Dr. Nesbitt’s death. The complaint further alleged appellant’s expenditure of $2,015.56 and the payment after Dr.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
198 Cal. App. 2d 38, 17 Cal. Rptr. 744, 1961 Cal. App. LEXIS 2504, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/monell-v-college-of-physicians-surgeons-calctapp-1961.