78 A.D. 22 | N.Y. App. Div. | 1902
The order should be affirmed, with ten dollars costs and disbursements.
The action was to recover the amount of a deposit made by Mary Murphy, who is deceased, in the defendant savings bank. The deceased died December 20, 1900. On that day some person presented to the bank the pass book of deceased with an order purporting to have been signed by her for the payment of the fund to one Bridget LaFleur, and requested the transfer of the fund to the account of LaFleur, and the bank thereupon made the transfer. The plaintiff claims that the order was signed by deceased, and delivered with the bank book to LaFleur for the purpose of transferring the fund to her; that LaFluer thereafter and in May, 1901, assigned and transferred the fund to the plaintiff, and that she is the owner thereof. In January, 1901, before the transfer to the plaintiff, the administrator of deceased’s estate made claim to the fund as the owner thereof, and demanded payment of the same from the bank, and later and before the commencement of this action gave notice in writing of his claim of title to the fund, and forbade the bank to pay it to the plaintiff. The plaintiff commenced this action December 10, 1901. Thereafter and on January 24, 1902, the administrator served upon the bank another written claim to the fund with his affidavit annexed, wherein he stated that he was husband of the deceased at the time of her death; that he was informed and believed that the deceased was the owner of the fund when she died, and wherein he denied that any transfer thereof was legally made by her in her lifetime to LaFleur, or that LaFleur ever became legally or rightly the owner or entitled to the possession of the fund, and wherein he stated upon information and belief that deceased did not, as claimed by LaFleur, make any present of the fund to her, or transfer the same to her, and wherein he stated that he had fully and fairly
The plaintiff claims the order was improperly granted upon the showing made in the moving papers. No objection is made to the terms of the order disposing of the fund during the pendency of the action, or discontinuing the action as to the bank, if the provision bringing the administrator in as a party defendant is upheld. The contention of the plaintiff is that the bank was not entitled to the relief under the section referred to, unless it gave some proof to sustain the claim made by the administrator.
The language of this section is as follows : “ In all actions against any savings bank to recover for moneys on deposit therewith, if there l>e any person or persons not parties to the action who claim the same fund, the court in which the action is pending may, on the petition of such savings bank, and upon eight days notice to the plaintiff and such claimants, make an order amending the proceedings in the action by making such claimants parties defendant thereto; and the court shall thereupon proceed to determine the rights and interests of the several parties to the action in and to such funds.”
There can be no doubt upon this showing that the court was authorized to exercise its discretion in favor of the bank, and to make the order. The object of this statute is to relieve these savings banks from two or more litigations over the same deposit, with all the expense attending the same, and the danger of having to pay the amount of the deposit to two or more different persons. A recovery by one claimant would be no bar to a recovery of the same deposit by as many others as might severally claim the same. If the court is satisfied that there will be other suits brought by the claimants against the bank, unless they are brought into the suit already pending, should the relief be denied because the claims made are not shown by the bank to be good ones ? It should be made to appear by some evidence that there is hazard and danger to the bank in paying to the plaintiff in view of the claim made by the third party, but such evidence need not of necessity be directed to the sustaining of the claim. There seems to be no doubt in this case that the administrator persistently claims this fund and will have his day in court and seek to recover the same. The court very properly upon the showing made by the defendant, in the absence of any showing on the part of the plaintiff to the contrary, concluded that such hazard and danger existed and ordered that the claimant be brought into this action and compelled to meet his adversary here.
The one claims the order was a good transfer of the fund to the LaFleur woman, the other denies this. No one else has any interest in this controversy but these parties. They should be compelled to settle it between themselves. The bank should not be compelled to litigate it with each in separate actions, with the hazard and danger that both parties might succeed and the bank be compelled to pay the same fund twice over. There may undoubtedly be cases where the claim of the third party is shown to be so devoid of merit as to call upon the court to refuse its discretion in favor of the bank. Such a case was the one cited by the plaintiff. (Steiner v. East River Savings Institution, 60 App. Div. 282.) The bank there showed
Our attention is called to no other cases than the Steiner case arising under section 115 of the Banking Law. There are many cases arising under section 820 of the Code, decided in the New York General Term and Appellate Division, but they were determined upon the particular facts appearing in those cases, and even if by analogy they are to be regarded as applicable to cases under section 115 of the Banking Law they are not, we think, decisive of the case we are here considering.
Adams, P. J., Spring, Hiscock and Davy, JJ., concurrred.
Order affirmed, with ten dollars costs.