## Facts

- During pending divorce proceedings, W. G. Brown, Sr. placed a large quantity of gold coins into a safe-deposit box leased in his daughter Billie Jean McCune’s name at a Little Rock bank.
- The coins included 650 Krugerrands, 13 Mexican pesos, and one double-eagle gold piece, valued at about $250,000.
- Brown admitted the transfer was made to keep the property from being reached by his then-wife in the divorce.
- After the divorce, Brown demanded return of the gold; McCune refused, claiming the transfer was a completed inter vivos gift.
- Brown sued in chancery court for restraining relief and return of the gold, relying in part on replevin statutes to establish a right to possession.

## Issues

1. Whether placing the gold in McCune’s safe-deposit box constituted a completed inter vivos gift (donative intent, delivery, and acceptance), vesting ownership in McCune.
2. Whether Brown was equitably estopped from reclaiming the gold because he transferred it to defeat his spouse’s marital rights.
3. Whether equitable relief should be denied because Brown’s claim depended on his own fraudulent purpose and misconduct.

## Decision

- The appellate court affirmed the chancellor’s finding that Brown did not make a completed inter vivos gift because the transfer lacked donative intent and was intended as a temporary concealment.
- The appellate court held that Brown was equitably estopped from asserting a right to recover the gold due to his admitted scheme to defraud his spouse.
- The court denied Brown relief and left the gold with McCune, not as a validated gift, but because equity would not assist Brown in reclaiming property transferred for a wrongful purpose.

## Legal Principles

- A completed inter vivos gift requires donative intent, delivery, and acceptance; a transfer made solely to conceal assets with an understanding of later return lacks donative intent and is not a gift.
- A transferor who places property in another’s name to hinder a spouse’s marital property claims may be equitably estopped from later reclaiming it.
- Equity may refuse relief where the claimant must rely on his own fraudulent conduct to establish the claim, consistent with clean-hands and in pari delicto principles.

## Conclusion

The court concluded that Brown’s concealment-motivated transfer did not create a valid gift, but his admitted effort to defeat his spouse’s rights barred him from recovering the property in equity, so McCune retained the gold on estoppel grounds.


McCune v. Brown, 8 Ark. App. 51 (Ark. Ct. App. 1983)