Klosiewski, Individually, and Administratrix, Etc. v. Slovan Building & Loan Association

McWilliams, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. In 1925 Kazimierz Klosiewski (Casimir) and Anna, his wife, had $200 on deposit with Kosciuszko Permanent Loan and Savings Association. By 1930 the balance had risen to $1,800. When Anna died in January 1937 it had dwindled to $414.

They had no children. Casimir married another Anna in July 1945. Pie was 55 at the time. She was a 46 year old widow with a married daughter.

She had worked for some years before she married Casimir and she continued "working after their marriage. In October of the year of their marriage he arranged the transfer of his home at 4908 Pennington Avenue from his name to the names of himself and Anna as tenants by the entireties. During 1945 there was on deposit in the account only $230. At or about this time he made her the beneficiary of a $3,000 life insurance policy.

In June 1948 Casimir instructed Kosciuszko to change the account from his single name to himself, in trust for himself and Eva Ulatowska (his sister), joint owners, the balance at ⁸⁴ the death of either to belong to the survivor, subject only to his order. At that time the balance, after a deposit of $73.60, was $500. In August 1950, after his sister’s death, he had the account changed so that the names of her children would be substituted for her name. The sons were Joseph and Edward.

The daughters were Gertrude, Ida and Blanche. At that time the balance on deposit was $1,023. In October 1954 Casimir opened an account with Slovan Building and Loan Association in his own name. The initial deposit was $200.

In December 1958 he had the names of his nieces and nephews added so as to make the Slovan account conform with the Kosciuszko account. When Casimir died on 9 January 1965 the balance in the Kosciuszko account was $5,736.30. In the Slovan account there was $1,854.96. If tender and romantic sentiments prompted the marriage of Casimir and Anna II they soon subsided.

Their life lapsed into a dull, cold routine punctuated only by occasional outbursts of nattering hostility. She left him three times, she said. He made her pay part of the taxes and the gas and electric bills. She bought her own food and kept it in her refrigerator.

He kept his food in his refrigerator. She complained that when she would go to visit her daughter he would eat her food. The Ulatowska girls said they and their brothers were close to their uncle. They mentioned the “coldness” between him and Anna.

Blanche related Anna’s complaint that Casimir “was stingy * * * [that] he wouldn’t give her nothing to eat” and that she “had to depend on her daughter to feed her.” Gertrude described their relationship as being “funny * * * like a movie.” She said “they were always bickering back and forth. She [Anna] would say ‘Shut up’ to him and he would say ‘Shut up’ to her, and they would go on and go on and on.” When Casimir and Anna were married he was employed as a janitor by a Baltimore branch of the DuPont Company. He kept on working until physical disability forced his retirement in November 1950. A representative of the company said “he had been ill for some time * * * that he had an infarct of the heart, chronic bronchitis, embolism, bursitis of both legs, ⁸⁵ and a hernia on the left side.” There was also some loss of hearing.

His monthly pension of $66.03 was increased to $67 in May 1954. When he became eligible, a few years later, he received an additional $77.50 from Social Security. Anna stopped working in 1956 and not long thereafter she too began receiving Social Security payments. She said she took care of the home, cooked and did washing.

She claimed he did not support her, that he put his pension money in the bank for “his nieces and nephews.” As Blanche put it “it was just that she was doing without and she kept throwing it up to us that she was doing without so much and we would get everything. That was the whole trouble.” Actually the last deposit in the Kosciuszko account was made 8 September 1953, 11 years before Casimir’s death. At that time the balance was $3,400. The last deposit in the Slovan account was made 3 years before his death.

Anna admitted Casimir had told her about the accounts several years before his death. Gertrude said Casimir told her [Gertrude] about the accounts. It seems likely she told the others. Immediately after Casimir’s death, Anna filed a bill of complaint in the Circuit Court No. 2 of Baltimore City, asking the court to declare the two accounts to be assets of Casimir’s estate.

She alleged her deceased husband’s purpose was “to fraudulently deprive” her of her “marital rights.” The case was tried before Judge Harris in May 1966. This is Anna’s appeal from his order dismissing her bill of complaint. Our decision here will be controlled by Whittington v. Whittington, 205 Md. 1, 12 , 106 A. 2d 72 (1954). Chief Judge Bruñe, who delivered the Court’s opinion in Whittington , said: “In Maryland, the completeness of the transfer and the extent of control retained by the transferor, the motive of the transferor, participation by the transferee in the alleged fraud and the degree to which the surviving spouse is stripped of his or her interest in the estate of the decedent spouse have all been considered material, and no one test has been adopted to the exclusion of all other tests.

As pointed out by Mr. Sykes in his article above referred to [Sykes, Inter ⁸⁶ Vivos Trcmsfers in Violation of the Rights of Surviving Spouses, 10 Md. L. R.