DONATION ( Lat. donatio, gift, from donarc, to give. from donum. Skt. duna, gift, from Lat. dare, Gk. Morat didonai, Skt. di, to give). In strict legal usage, the word donation is confined to the transfer of personal property made with out consideration : the word 'gift' being at com mon law restricted to a particular kind of transfer of real estate—that by which there is created an estate in fee tail—an estate, that is, which is granted to a man and the heirs of his body. The instrument by which such a transfer is made is technically termed a deed of gift. In popular usage. however, the term gift is more commonly emplo?ed in the sense of donation, and in the United States this is its usual legal signification also. The general classification of the gifts of personal property is twofold: gifts inter riros (between the living), which go into effect at once and have no reference to future events; and gifts mortis cause (because of—that is, in expectation of—death). This last form of gift is usually intended to avoid the neces sity of making a will when circumstances ren der that impossible or difficult. Only personal property can pass in this way; the transfer must be made when the death of the donor appears imminent, there must be delivery of the prop erty. and the gift takes effect only upon the death of the donor. The gift, therefore, is really a conditional one and is ipso facto revoked by the recovery of the donor, or may he recalled by him before death actually occurs. A gift inter viros, on the contrary, is absolute, and not revocable.
All kinds of personal property are subject to gift, including even a chose in act ion, that is, property of which the owner has not the actual ixissession, hut the right of possession. and which he may reduce to possession by legal action.
Such a right can only be transferred by a duly executed written assignment. The only cases in which a gift of personal property. inter tiros, is revocable are where it is prejudicial to the legal rights of creditors. when the donor is legally incapable of making the gift, or when the trans action is vitiated by fraud.
It is a general rule of law that a transfer of personal property will not be presumed to be a donation, or gift ; that is to say. unless there is evidence to the contrary, it will be assumed that the transfer of valuable property was made for a valuable consideration. Thus the support of a child by a relative not his parent will render any estate which he may possess liable for a compensation: and it has even been held under special circumstances that a father may maintain a claim for the expense of sustaining his child where the latter possesses a separate estate. A special use of the word donation in this coun try is in the expression 'donation lands,' which were certain lands set apart by the State of Penn sylvania after the in the northwest part of its territory, as a gift to its citizens who had served in the Revolutionary Army. See CONVEYANCE: DELIVERY GIFT: PERSONAL PROP ERTY.
The phrase donna° propter vuptias (a gift on account of marriage) was used in the civil or Roman law to designate the sum paid by a hus band as the offset to the wife's dowry: this was considered partly as a jointure for the wife in ruse of her survival, partly as security for the return of the wife's dowry to her heirs if she failed to survive her husband. Consult the au thorities referred to under the titles Girr: TRUST, etc.