Case ID: abbn-cas_25/html/0403-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Daly, J.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

PEOPLE ex rel. FIREMEN’S INS. CO. v. JUSTICES OF THE CITY COURT OF N. Y.
    
      N. Y. Common Pleas, Special Term;
    
    
      September, 1890
    N. Y. City Court; service of summons out of city.] The summons in an action in the city court of New York against a foreign insurance company, may be served upon the superintendent of insurance at his office in Albany, under the provisions of L. 1884, c. 846, which gives the court jurisdiction of such an action.
    Petition for writ of prohibition to enjoin the city court •of New York from proceeding with an action brought by Morris Shrier and others against the Firemen’s Insurance 'Company of Baltimore, a Maryland corporation, doing business in this State.
    The summons and complaint in-the action were served upon the superintendent of insurance at Albany, who admitted service thereof. A motion to set aside the service was made by defendant, and denied by the chief justice of the city court, whereupon the defendant made this appli•cation.
    
      Benno Loewy, for the relator.
    
      David Leventritt, for the respondents.
   Daly, J.

Ordinarily a summons in an action in the •city court of New York cannot be served without the City of New York, but an exception was evidently intended by the legislature in the case of actions against foreign insurance corporations, for the city court is given jurisdiction of such actions,* and the legislature has provided that process against such corporations may be served upon the superintendent of insurance. This officer has his office in Albany, and there the process must be served upon him. We must conclude, therefore, the legislature intended city court process to be served upon him there, or else that the jurisdiction of the city court over actions against such company should be taken away. The former is the more reasonable view, as it will be borne out by reading the statute of 1884 and the Code together,'!' as if enacted at the same time, and this will show an exception to the general provisions of the Code in the cases provided for in the statute. The city court, therefore, properly decided to entertain the action.

Application denied.