Following my opinion in this matter (Ecker v. Myer, 118 Misc. Rep. 356) two orders have been presented to me for signature, one permissive and the other mandatory. Section 792 of the Civil Practice Act provides for a permissive order and limits the application to one made “ before the appointment of a receiver.” Here the application is by a creditor to compel an insurance company to pay the cash surrender value of a policy of life insurance to a receiver. The sole question now is, should a mandatory order issue pursuant to the provisions of section 793 of the Civil Practice Act? That section is the same, save for slight changes in the transposition of words and minor ones in punctuation, as was section 2447 of the Code of Civil Procedure. The latter section (adopted and incorporated in the Code of Civil Procedure by Laws of 1880, chap. 178) was a revision of section 297 of the old Code of Procedure (Laws of 1851, chap. 479), originally section 252 (Laws of 1848, chap. 379). It had uniformly been held an order would lie under said section 297 to compel payment by a third party of a debt due to a judgment debtor. Durand v. Hankerson, 39 N. Y. 287, 296; Lynch v. Johnson, 48 id. 27, affg. 46 Barb. 56; Alexander v. Richardson, 30 N. Y. Super. Ct. 63; People ex rel. Williams v. Hulburt, 5 How. Pr. 446; Corning v. Tooker, Id. 16; Locke v. Mabbett, 3 Abb. Ct. App. Dec. 68. Then followed West Side Bank v. Pugsley, 47 N. Y. 368, 372, 374, where the court in the course of its opinion sought to limit the remedy by confining it to property other than debts and choses in action, whereas the denial by the bank of the indebtedness was sufficient to defeat the order and leave the fund subject to an action at the hands of a receiver. The dicta seems to have been followed by text writers and in Knights of Pythias v. Man. Sav. Inst., 12 Misc. Rep. 626, referred to in my former opinion. Such a limited interpretation is not to be given to the present section 793 of the Civil Practice Act. In Stehli Silks Corp. v. Kleinberg, 200 App. Div. 16, the purpose of the new act is clearly enunciated, from which I quote: “ In order to give the Civil Practice Act the effect which its passage was intended to secure, it must be applied in a broad and liberal spirit, and its provisions must not be restricted by a forced and narrow interpretation, based on the language of former sections in the Code of Civil Procedure, which have been totally superseded by the later legislation.” Section 793 more carefully defines the remedy than did section 297 of the older Code. Under it the
Ordered accordingly.
