Hall v. Superior Federal Bank

In 1984 Dorothy Edwards opened a savings account with Superior Federal Bank (defendant). On the signature card, Edwards included her own name and named Virginia T. Hall (plaintiff) as a joint tenant with right of survivorship. Edwards opened a Merrill Lynch (defendant) account in 1973 in her own name and Hall’s name as joint tenants with right of survivorship. Following Edwards’s death in 1988, F. A. Russ, the executor of Edwards’s estate, obtained an order enjoining Superior Federal Bank and Merrill Lynch from disbursing the funds in the accounts. Hall then filed suit against Superior Federal Bank and Merrill Lynch seeking the funds in the accounts. Following a trial, the trial court found that there was a confidential relationship between Hall and Edwards, that Hall abused the confidential relationship, and that Edwards did not intend the funds in the accounts to pass to Hall. The court imposed a constructive trust on the accounts and determined that the funds in both accounts should pass to Edwards’s estate. Hall appealed, arguing that Arkansas statutory law determined ownership of the accounts. Arkansas Code Annotated § 23-32-1005, which applied to banking institutions or federally and state-chartered savings-and-loan associations, provided that the designation in writing of a person as a joint tenant with right of survivorship on an account was conclusive evidence of the account holder’s intent to vest title to the account to the survivor. Hall further argued that the trial court erred in admitting parol evidence of Edwards’s intent.