Estate of Cowling v. Estate of Cowling

Grace Cowling (plaintiff) and Garnard Cowling were married in 1967. Both Grace and Garnard had been married before, and both had children from their previous marriages. Over the years, Grace and Garnard accumulated several brokerage accounts as joint tenants with right of survivorship. In 1996, Grace transferred exclusive control of the accounts to Garnard, who put the stocks they contained into a transfer-on-death (TOD) account. Garnard designated the Cowlings (defendants), his three children from a previous marriage, as the account’s transferees. At the time of Garnard’s death in 1998, all of the stocks in the account, with a value of $325,538, transferred to the Cowlings. Grace filed a claim against the Cowlings asserting a constructive trust over the stocks. The parties stipulated that, at the time of the trial, the stocks Garnard had transferred to the Cowlings were in the same form in which he had received them. Grace presented expert testimony that she had contributed $255,354 to the original brokerage accounts. The trial court imposed a constructive trust on $255,354 worth of the stocks in the TOD account. The Cowlings appealed the trial court’s judgment. As security for their appeal, the Cowlings sold the stocks and deposited the proceeds with the Lorain County Clerk of Courts. The court of appeals reversed the trial court’s judgment, and Grace appealed.