Charles Evans Hughes

“ Here, however, there is no conflict of decision. Whether there ever will be, or the Court of Errors and Appeals will disapprove the rulings in the Thatcher and Travers cases, is merely a matter of conjecture. See West v. American Telephone and Telegraph Co., supra. At the present time the Thatcher and Travers cases stand as the only exposition of the law of the State with respect to the construction and effect of the statutes of 1932, and the Circuit Court of Appeals was not at liberty to reject these decisions merely because it did not agree with their reasoning. ”

“ Prior to these statutes, it had been the law of New Jersey that a mere savings bank deposit made by a decedent in his own name as trustee for another, over which the decedent exercised complete control during his life, was insufficient to establish a gift inter vivos or to create a trust as against the decedent's legal representatives. ”

“ An intermediate state court in declaring and applying the state law is acting as an organ of the State and its determination, in the absence of more convincing evidence of what the state law is, should be followed by a federal court in deciding a state question. ”