Case ID: ad_72/html/0180-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Patterson, J.:", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Christine H. Hinsdale, Appellant, v. Bankers’ Life Insurance Company of the City of New York, Respondent.
    
      Interpleader — of claimants to the proceeds of an insurance policy — some basis must be shown for the adverse claim.
    
    Where a person, holding by assignment full title to a policy of life insurance, brings an action against the life insurance company to recover thereon, the life . insurance company is not entitled to an order interpleading a third person when the moving papers disclose nothing but the simple fact that the third party has made claim to the policy, and no circumstances are stated indicating that such claim has the slightest foundation.
    Appeal by the plaintiff, Christine H. Hinsdale, from an order of ■the Supreme Court, made at the New York Special Term and entered in the office of the clerk of the county of New York bn the 19th day of April, 1902, granting the defendant’s motion for an interpleader.
    
      Charles Blandy, for the appellant.
    
      Arthur L. Sherer, for the respondent.
   Patterson, J.:

The order appealed from which grants a motion for interpleader must be reversed. The plaintiff holds by assignment full title to the policy of insurance upon which the action is brought. The motion papers disclose nothing but the fact that a claim has been made by a third party to the policy of insurance. Not a "single circumstance is mentioned to indicate that that claim has the slightest foundation. Ye have frequently held that something must be stated in the affidavits, upon applications of this character, to throw a real doubt upon- the right of the plaintiff to recover. . (Stevenson v. N. Y. Life Ins. Co., 10 App, Div. 233; Burritt v. Press Publishing Co., 19 id. 609; Roberts v. Vanhorne, 21 id. 369; Golden v. Met. Life Ins. Co,, 35 id. 569; Wells v. Nat. City Bank, 40 id. 498; Steiner v. East River Savings Inst., 60 id. 232.)

There is nothing in the motion papers from which it can be reasonably inferred that a doubt, based upon facts, exists as to who is justly entitled to recover upon the policy of insurance upon which this action is brought.

The order must be reversed, with ten dollars costs and disbursements, and the motion for an interpleader denied, with ten dollars costs, but with liberty to the defendant to renew the motion upon, proper papers.

O’Brien, McLaughlin, Hatch and Laughlin, JJ., concurred.

Order reversed, with ten dollars costs and disbursements, and motion denied, with ten dollars costs, but with leave to defendant to renew motion upon proper papers.