First National Bank v. Sturgis 223 N.Y. 722

First National Bank of Bath, Appellant, v. Helen R. Sturgis, Respondent, Impleaded with Another.

First Nat. Bank of Bath v. Sturgis, 177 App. Div. 894, affirmed.

(Submitted May 14, 1918;

decided May 28, 1918.)

Appeal from a judgment of the Appellate • Division of the Supreme Court in the second judicial department, entered February 8, 1917, modifying and affirming as modified a judgment in favor of defendant entered upon a dismissal of the complaint by the court on trial at Special Term. ' The action was instituted by the First National Bank of Bath, Maine, suing on behalf of itself and such other creditors as might intervene (Domestic Relations Law, section 52), and it is sought to reach for the benefit of the creditors of Thomas Sturgis, deceased, such life insurance moneys as may have been purchased by annual premiums hr excess of $500. Defendant contended that the plaintiff is a foreign corporation; that the insurance moneys accrued on policies issued by foreign insurance companies and that this foreign corporation never could have recovered any of this insurance money in Maine, where it resided, even if it had served Mrs. Sturgis there, nor in Connecticut or New Jersey, where it was alone payable, the statutes of such states being entirely different in character from the New York law; that under such circumstances there is no occasion for extending section 52 of the Domestic Relations Law so as to aid a non-resident plaintiff to recover money which did not arise in the state of New York, but accrued to the widow, and was due and payable by the terms of the insurance policies, only hi Newark, N. J., and Hartford, Conn.

*723 Roswell S. Nichols and Fulton J. Redman for appellant.

William H. Hamilton and Norman C. Conklin for respondent.