Jimenez v. Lee
Oregon Supreme Court
547 P.2d 126 (1976)
While Elizabeth Lee (plaintiff) was a minor, her grandmother purchased a $1,000 E-bond for her educational needs, and a family friend gave an additional $500 for the same purpose; the bond was registered in Elizabeth's and her parents' names, and the $500 was placed in a savings account in her father Jason Lee's (defendant's) name alongside his other children. Jason, a lawyer, later cashed the bond and withdrew the savings funds, investing them in stock registered in his name as "custodian" for his children, despite once writing to his mother that he held the E-bond funds "in trust" for Elizabeth and her brother; he kept no separate records of income or expenditures from these funds, though his summary of expenditures included both educational items and family ballet outings unrelated to Elizabeth's education. Elizabeth sued to compel an accounting, and the trial court found Jason held the funds only as custodian under the Uniform Gift to Minors Act, not as trustee, dismissing her claim; she appealed.
Whether, where property is transferred to an individual to be held for the benefit of another, a trust arises, imposing on the trustee duties to administer the trust solely for the beneficiary's benefit and to account for its income and expenditures.