Can a depressed wife's RMB 550,000 in donations be recovered?
A man in Hefei who had saved RMB 550,000 over ten years found that his wife had given all of it to 218 charities through WeChat and Alipay. She was later diagnosed with moderate depression, and he asked the foundations to refund the money. Chinese law treats a donation as a gift contract: the gift cannot be revoked at will once it has been performed, and depression is not in itself a lack of civil capacity, so a refund rests on the foundations' goodwill rather than on a legal right.
Case summary
A news item published on the Weibo account of @Today's Headlines reported that a man had saved RMB 550,000 of hard-earned money over ten years, only to find that his wife had donated every last cent of it. Mr Su, 33, works at a private company in Hefei, Anhui province, and had put aside RMB 550,000 over ten difficult years. After the birth of their child his wife gave up her job and stayed at home, and she was frequently irritable. To keep her mood on an even keel, Mr Su handed all of the savings to her to look after. It was not until the Lantern Festival in 2019, when his father-in-law was admitted to hospital with a heart condition and needed money for surgery, that his wife told him the family's money was "all gone".
From 2015 she had been giving money to public welfare fundraising projects through WeChat and Alipay. At first the amounts were small, but from 2017 they rose sharply. The projects were of many kinds, such as helping children to stay in school and emergency relief for floods in the north and south. By the time the family found out, she had given a total of RMB 550,000 to 218 foundations. Mr Su took her to hospital for examination, and she was diagnosed with moderate depression.
Mr Su's position is that his wife gave away the family's savings because her depression left her unable to control herself, and he hopes that the foundations which received the money will show understanding and sympathy and return it. Because the donations were made over a long period, most of the charitable projects have already been carried out and the funds have been paid over to the recipients, so most of the foundations say the money cannot now be refunded. At present Mr Su can recover about RMB 20,000. What do you think? (The Paper)
The story immediately set off a lively discussion online. The legal question is this: the woman suffers from depression and gave the family's entire savings of RMB 550,000 to charitable organisations, so can the donations be recovered?
Legal analysis
A donation is legally a gift, and it creates a gift contract between the donor and the recipient. Article 186 of the Contract Law, headed "arbitrary revocation of and restrictions on gift contracts", provides that a donor may revoke a gift before the rights to the gifted property have been transferred, but that this rule does not apply to gift contracts that are made for disaster relief, poverty alleviation or other public welfare or moral obligations, or that have been notarised.
Article 52 of the Contract Law provides that a contract is void in any of the following circumstances: (1) one party concludes the contract by fraud or duress, to the detriment of the interests of the State; (2) the parties collude in bad faith to the detriment of the interests of the State, a collective or a third party; (3) an unlawful purpose is concealed under a lawful form; (4) the public interest is harmed; (5) a mandatory provision of a law or administrative regulation is violated.
Article 192 of the Contract Law, headed "statutory revocation of gifts", provides that a donor may revoke a gift where the donee (1) seriously infringes the donor or a close relative of the donor; (2) fails to perform an obligation to support the donor; or (3) fails to perform an obligation stipulated in the gift contract. The donor's right of revocation must be exercised within one year from the date on which the donor knew or ought to have known of the ground for revocation.
In this case none of the circumstances in which a contract is void under the Contract Law arises in the gift contracts created by the wife's donations, so the contracts are valid. The donations are also of a public welfare character, so the rule on arbitrary revocation does not apply, and the money has already been paid over to the charitable organisations, which means the gifts have been completed.
What is unusual here is that Mr Su's wife has been diagnosed with moderate depression. Can donations made in that condition be returned?
Article 144 of the General Provisions of the Civil Law provides that a civil juristic act performed by a person with no capacity for civil conduct is void. Depression, however, is a mental illness rather than a psychiatric disorder, so it cannot be treated as a lack of capacity for civil conduct. The specific determination would in any event require a forensic examination. Until a competent forensic body reaches a conclusion on capacity for civil conduct, the donations made by Mr Su's wife while depressed are valid.
Under the pressures of modern life and work, depression among young people has become common. In recent years there have also been many tragedies connected with postnatal depression. More and more people are coming to recognise how serious depression is, and no longer dismiss it as imaginary suffering, a fuss about nothing, or a simple failure of resilience. Depression should be faced squarely, and help sought and treatment begun promptly.
In this case the wife's intention in donating was a good one, but the total sum she gave plainly exceeded what the family could bear, and such an irrational course is not to be recommended. Fortunately, the latest follow-up reporting shows that by 24 September between twenty and thirty foundations had undertaken to make refunds, and the donations expected to be returned come to about RMB 380,000.