GIFT. A voluntary conveyance ; that is, a conveyance not founded on the considera tion of money or blood.
The word denotes rather the motive of the con veyance: so that a feoffment or grant may be °ailed a gift when gratuitous. A gift is of the same nature as a settlement: neither denotes a form of assurance, but the nature of the transaction. Wat kins, Cony. -Preston ed. 199. The operative words of this conveyance are do, or dedi-1 give, or I have given. The maker of this instrument is called the donor, and he to whom it is made, the donee. 2 Blackstone, Comm. 316; Littleton, 59; Sheppard, Touehst. c. 11..
Gifts inter vivos are gifts made from one or more persons, without any prospect of imme diate death, to one or more others. Gifts caust2 mortis are gifts made in prospect of death.
See DONATIO CAUSA MORTIS.
2. Gifts inter vivos have no reference to the future, and go into immediate and absolute effect. Delivery is essential. Without actual possession, the title does not pass. A mere in tention or naked promise to give, without some act to pass the property, is not a gift. There exists repentance (the locus pcenitentice) so long as the gift is complete and left imperfect in the mode of making it. 7 Johns. N. Y. 26.
The subject of the gift must be certain -, and there must be the mutual consent and concurrent will of both parties. Delivery must be according to the nature of the thing. It will have to be an actual delivery, so far as the subject is capable of delivery. If the
thing be not capable of actual delivery, there must be some act equivalent to it. The donor must part not only with the possession, but with the dominion. If the thing given be a chose in action, the law requires an assign ment or some equivalent instrument, and the transfer must be executed. 1 Swanst. Ch. 436 ; 1 Dev. No. C. 309.
3. When the gift is perfect, by delivery and acceptance, it is then irrevocable, unless it is prejudicial to creditors or the donor was under a legal incapacity or was circumvented by fraud.
If a man, intending to give a jewel to an other, say to him, Here I give you my ring with the ruby in it, etc., and with his own hand delivers it to the party, this will be a good gift notwithstanding the ring bear any other jewel, being delivered by the party him self to the person to whom given. Bacon, Max. 87.
Where a father bought a ticket in a lottery, which he declared he gave to his infant daughter E, and wrote her name upon it, and after the ticket had drawn a prize he declared that he had given the ticket to his child E, and that the prize money was hers, this was held sufficient for a jury to infer all the formality requisite to a valid gift, and that the title in the money was complete and vested in E. See 10 Johns. N. Y. 293.