Question

you be the judge writing problem eileen murphy often cared for her elderly neighbor, thomas kenney. he paid her $25 per day for helpd and once gave her a blank certificate of deposit worth $25000. she spent the money. Purphy alleged that shortly before his death, keeney gave her a large block of shares in three corporations. he called hsi broker, intending to instruct him to transfer the share to murphys name, but the broker was ill and unavailable . so keeney told murphy to write her name on the shares and keep them, which she did. two weeks later, keeney died. when murphy presented the shares to kenney's broker to transfer ownership to her, the broker refused because keeney had never endorsed the shares as the law requires that is, signed them over to murphy. was murphy entitled to the $25000 and the shares? argument for murphy. the purpose of the law is to do what a donor inteded, and it is obvious that kenney intended murphy to have the $25000 and the shares. why else would he have given them to her? a greedy estate should not be allowed to interfere with the deceased's intentions. argument for the estate: murphy is not entitled to the $25000 because we have no way of knowing what keeney's intentions were when he gave her the money. she is not entitled to the shares of stock because kenney's failure to endorse them over to her meant he never delivered them, and that is an essential element of a gift.

Answer 1