Citation Numbers: 50 A.D.2d 819
Filed Date: 12/8/1975
Status: Precedential
Modified Date: 1/12/2022
— In an action inter alia to recover the proceeds of a certain bank account, plaintiff appeals from an order of the Supreme Court, Nassau County, entered March 13, 1975, which granted defendant’s motion to dismiss the complaint. Order affirmed, without costs. Plaintiff’s husband died intestate on January 2, 1965; plaintiff was appointed administratrix of his estate shortly thereafter. The decedent had kept a safe deposit box in his own name in the defendant bank. Pursuant to an order of the Surrogate’s Court, Kings County, dated February 1, 1965, decedent’s safe deposit box was inventoried in the presence of plaintiff, decedent’s daughter Jacqueline Silverberg, a representative of the State Tax Commission and a bank official. The inventory revealed the presence in the box of cash in the amount of $21,900 which, on March 31, 1965, was placed in an account in the bank in the name "Estate of Henry Matus, also known as Henry J. Matus, Deceased, by Miriam Matus [plaintiff], Administratrix.” The inventory apparently also revealed some jewelry and miscellaneous items which were placed in a safe deposit box in the bank in the name of the estate of the deceased, with plaintiff as administratrix. Plaintiff never filed an accounting. On November 4, 1968, the Surrogate’s Court, Kings County, acting in response to the petition of decedent’s daughter, Mrs. Silverberg, ordered plaintiff to account. When plaintiff again failed to file an accounting, decedent’s daughter moved in the Surrogate’s Court to revoke plaintiff’s letters of administration. Plaintiff was personally served with process, but failed to answer the petition or to appear on the return date. The Surrogate’s Court granted the motion by order dated June 20, 1969. The Surrogate’s Court directed that plaintiff be served with a certified copy of the order, appear in court, and file an account in accordance with its prior order of November 4, 1968. The court further ordered plaintiff to "pay over and deliver all monies and other property of the estate of * * * Henry Matus * * * now in her hands, into this court, or to an administrator de bonis non, of the goods, chattels and credits”. On July 22, 1969 letters of administration de bonis non were issued to Mrs. Silverberg. Plaintiff again failed to appear, file an account, or act as ordered by the Surrogate’s Court. Thereafter, Mrs. Silverberg obtained an order from the Surrogate’s Court, dated February 25, 1970, directing the defendant bank to attend an inquiry and show cause why it should not deliver to her all the moneys and property held in that bank for the decedent’s estate. The defendant bank attended the inquiry and, on April 13, 1970, the Surrogate’s Court issued an order directing the defendant bank to turn over the assets of decedent’s estate, which it possessed, to decedent’s daughter. The defendant bank complied