Upon being faced with a claim for the $200K, a routine task would be to review all relevant documents, and if an action had commenced on this issue, then there would have to be such a review for disclosure purposes (YMMV – I’m in Ontario). Such a review should trigger an alarm concerning the ownership of the 200K.
My WAG: it would seem that a reasonable person in John’s position as an experienced business person would check on accounts for ownership and amounts, and in any event would hire a lawyer for such litigation, and that a reasonable lawyer would perform the above tasks. Decisions based on similar facts might assist the court with this sort of thing.
BRICKER, my problem with the hypo is that it seems to me that any reasonably smart business person – say, the type in a position to receive a 200K house allowance as a job perk – would see immediately that there was an inherent conflict between the fact that (a) the money was his to use absolutely, without any question but (b) the money was never transferred to him and the account was not in his name. Surely you see the tension there? How can (A) be unquestionably true so long as (B) is true? At the very least, when a conflict of any kind arose, one would think one of his first questions would be “what about the 200K for the house?” So he may not in fact have questioned it, but I’m not entirely sure it was reasonable for a person in his position to have failed to question it. Lord knows I would have questioned it, and I’m not a business person or a transactions attorney. At to indicia – I guess you call the bank and ask if the account is open and what the balance is, and one the bank properly tells you to sit and spin, they’re not giving out that information, you demand to know from the company, and you further demand that your name be put on the account and/or the account be escrowed to prevent the funds from being retracted.
