de Hierapolis v. Reilly

Headnote

de Hiempolis v. Reilly, 44 App. Div. 33 , affirmed.

. Appeal, by permission, from a judgment of the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court in the first judicial department, entered January 17, 1900, affirming a judgment in favor of defendants Reilly et ah, entered upon a dismissal of the complaint by the court on trial at Special Term.

The following is the question certified:

The defendant Reilly being entitled to receive, on attaining the age of twenty-one years, a sum on deposit in the Kings County Trust Company, amounting to about five thousand dollars, in April, 1895, he being then under the age of twenty-one years, verbally asked the defendant Bessie Larkin to marry him at a future time. The defendant Bessie Larkin verbally promised and agreed to do so on condition that he would make to her a valid transfer of the said fund on deposit in the Kings County Trust Company. To this Reilly verbally agreed and a contract to marry was entered into between them. On the day that the defendant Reilly became of age, to wit, on April 2d, 1898, he assigned to the defendant Bessie Larkin the fund above mentioned for the purpose of carrying out his said agreement. At the time of the trial the marriage had not yet taken place, but the contract therefor was still in existence and in full force and effect, and the defendant Larkin was ready and willing to carry out the same.

Between April, 1895, when the said .agreement to marry was entered into, and April, 1898, when the assignment of the fund was actually made, the defendant Reilly, who was still under the age of twenty-one years, had incurred obligations to the plaintiff and the defendant Carpenter, and which the said Reilly had no means to pay except from the said fund in said trust company. The defendant Larkin had no knowledge of the defendant Reilly’s indebtedness at the time she received and accepted the assignment of said fund.

Under these circumstances, did the defendant Larkin, by the said assignment, acquire a valid title to said fund as against said creditors, they having subsequent to said assignment obtained judgments against Reilly upon their said claims.