Crichton v Crichton [1930] HCA 14

536 HIGH COURT

(HIGH COURT OF AUSTRALIA.]

CRICHTON 2. ee, PLAINTIFF, : AND

CRICHTON AND OTHERS . . . . RESPONDENTS. ~

DrreNDANTS,

ON APPEAL FROM THE SUPREME COURT OF VICTORIA.

H.C. or A. Gift—Husband and wife—Father and son—Trust—Advancement—Bonds bought by

1930. husband —Gift to wife and son—Whether gift perfected. nia A husband applied and paid for bonds in a Commonwealth loan, He May 29, 30. obtained from the Commonwealth Bank an acknowledgment that it held Alzeeait bonds of the required denomination on his account. In fact the bonds were _ 4 represented by inscribed stock in the Bank's name. Afterwards he caused — line the Bank to issue to him in substitution an acknowledgment that it held the sans 3, bonds upon his wife's account. About a year later he obtained his wife's — Rich, Starke' signature to a direction to the Bank to hold the bonds on her behalf, and told — and Dixon JJ. er he was giving her the bonds and would keep the safe custody receipt in his safe.

Held, by the whole Court, that the wife was beneficially entitled to the bonds:

By Isaacs C.J., on the ground that the husband had constituted himself a trustee thereof for her ;

By Gavan Duffy and Starke JJ., on the ground that a gift was effectually made to the wife ;

By Rich J., on the ground that the husband had transferred to the wife the legal title to call for the bonds with an intention of advancing her;

By Dixon J., on the ground that the husband had invested his wife with — the legal title to call for the bonds and that when afterwards he communicated a present intention of giving them to her beneficially he effectually made over to her his outstanding equitable interest.

C.L.R.] OF AUSTRALIA.

payable to his son's order drawn upon a bank in Melbourne. He obtained

his son's indorsement and sent it to his correspondents in Melboume with __ instruetions to buy Commonwealth bonds on his son's account. 'They bought bonds, and on the father's return handed them to the father, who deposited them with the Commonwealth Bank for safe oustody in his own name. The father then became a lunatic patient for a period during which his son came of age, 'The Master-in-Lunacy, considering the bonds to belong to the son, caused the Bank to substitute the son for the father as the person for whom the Bank held the bonds, and on the maturity of the bonds the son took up other bonds which the Bank acknowledged it held on his account. On his father's recovery the son offered to hold these bonds as a trustee for his father, but, in the end, his father signed a paper agreeing to waive all claim to them. Heli, by Gavan Duffy, Rich, Starke and Dixon JJ. (Isaacs ©. that the son was beneficially entitled to the bonds: