## Facts

- Ethel Reiss, age 66, was hospitalized for major surgery in New Brunswick, New Jersey, and anticipated the possibility of death.
- Immediately before being taken to surgery, she wrote a handwritten note (in Hungarian) addressed to her husband, Adam Reiss, and placed it in the drawer of her hospital bedside table.
- The note identified cash and financial documents hidden at home and stated, in substance, that certain items were to be Adam’s (including a building and loan book, a bank book, and money), while also directing that some money be set aside for a child’s schooling and that certain personal property go to others.
- Ethel asked a hospitalized friend to tell her husband or daughter about the note and to retrieve it.
- While Ethel was in surgery and unconscious, Adam came to the hospital, obtained the note from the bedside drawer, went home, and took possession of the cash and the referenced passbooks.
- After surgery, Ethel remained in a coma and never regained the ability to communicate before dying nine days later.
- Ethel had a previously executed will (made before reconciling with Adam) that left Adam one dollar and left the residue to her children and grandchildren.
- The estate representatives sued to recover the cash and financial instruments, asserting they were estate assets governed by the will rather than property transferred to Adam by gift causa mortis.

## Issues

1. Whether the handwritten hospital note and subsequent events created a valid gift causa mortis of the identified cash and financial instruments to the surviving husband.
2. Whether the delivery element of a gift causa mortis was satisfied when the donor left a note in a drawer and the donee retrieved the note and property while the donor was unconscious and thereafter unable to confirm or complete the transfer.

## Decision

- The New Jersey Supreme Court reversed the Appellate Division and reinstated the trial court’s judgment for the estate.
- The court held no valid gift causa mortis occurred because the strict delivery requirement was not met.
- The disputed cash and financial instruments remained part of the probate estate and were to be distributed under the will.

## Legal Principles

- A gift causa mortis is disfavored because it can operate as an informal substitute for a testamentary transfer; it is therefore subject to strict requirements.
- To be valid, a gift causa mortis requires: contemplation of imminent death, donative intent, delivery sufficient to transfer dominion and control to the donee, acceptance, and the donor’s death from the contemplated peril (with revocability if the donor survives).
- Delivery is essential and must place the donee in control of the subject matter (or an effective means of control) without requiring further action by the donor.
- Clear donative intent, standing alone, does not validate a gift causa mortis where the alleged delivery occurs through the donee’s unilateral actions while the donor lacks capacity to complete or confirm the transfer.
- An informal writing that does not satisfy testamentary formalities cannot alter a duly executed will, and courts will not relax delivery rules in a way that would circumvent the statute of wills.

## Conclusion

Because the decedent did not make a legally sufficient delivery of the cash and financial instruments during her lifetime and while competent, the attempted deathbed transfer failed as a gift causa mortis, and the property passed under the decedent’s will.


Foster v. Reiss, 18 N.J. 41, 112 A.2d 553 (N.J. 1955)