Spotlight on Joint Tenancy—Property Ownership.

Vincent Slavin was a partner at Cantor Fitzgerald Securities in the World Trade Center (WTC) in New York City.

In 1998, Slavin and Anna Baez became engaged and began living together. They placed both of their names on three accounts at Chase Manhattan Bank according to the bank’s terms, which provided that “accounts with multiple owners are joint, payable to either owner or the survivor.” Slavin arranged for the direct deposit of his salary and commissions into one of the accounts. On September 11, 2001, Slavin died when two planes piloted by terrorists crashed into the WTC towers, causing their collapse. At the time, the balance in the three accounts was $656,944.36. On September 14, Cantor Fitzgerald deposited an additional $58,264.73 into the directdeposit account. Baez soon withdrew the entire amount from all of the accounts. Mary Jelnek, Slavin’s mother, filed a suit against Baez to determine the ownership of the funds that had been in the accounts. In what form of ownership were the accounts held? Who is entitled to which of the funds and why? [In re Jelnek, 3 Misc.3d 725, 777 N.Y.S.2d 871 (2004)]

(See pages 910–916.)