The New International Encyclopædia/Donation

​DONATION (Lat. donatio, gift, from donare, to give, from donum, Skt. dāna, gift, from Lat. dare, Gk. διδόναι didonai, Skt. dā, to give). In strict legal usage, the word donation is confined to the transfer of personal property made without consideration; the word ‘gift’ being at common 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 employed 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 vivos (between the living), which go into effect at once and have no reference to future events; and gifts mortis causa (because of—that is, in expectation of—death). This last form of gift is usually intended to avoid the necessity of making a will when circumstances render 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 property, 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 be recalled by him before death actually occurs. A gift inter vivos, on the contrary, is absolute, and not revocable.

All kinds of personal property are subject to gift, including even a chose in action, that is, property of which the owner has not the actual possession, but 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 vivos, 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 transaction 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 country is in the expression ‘donation lands,’ which were certain lands set apart by the State of Pennsylvania after the Revolution, 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 Property.

The phrase donatio propter nuptias (a gift on account of marriage) was used in the civil or Roman law to designate the sum paid by a husband as the offset to the wife’s dowry; this was considered partly as a jointure for the wife in case 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 authorities referred to under the titles Gift; Trust, etc.