Case ID: ny_229/html/0588-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

In the Matter of the Application for Letters of Administration on the Estate of Thomas F. Sheedy, Deceased. Mary J. Riley, Appellant; Minerva L. Sheedy, Respondent.
    
      Executors and administrators — when petitioner who had obtained divorce from husband but thereafter lived with him as his wife entitled to letters of administration of his estate.
    
    
      Matter of Sheedy, 189 App. Div. 582, affirmed.
    (Argued June 1, 1920;
    decided July 7, 1920.)
    Appeal from an order of the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court in the first judicial department, entered December 5, 1919, which reversed a decree of the New York County Surrogate’s Court denying a petition for letters of administration on the estate of Thomas F. Sheedy, deceased, on the ground that the petitioner was not legally the widow of 'the .decedent. The petitioner and decedent were legally married in Chicago and thereafter came' to this state and lived together for a number of years when they separated. Petitioner returned to Chicago and there sued for and obtained a divorce upon service of the summons by publication. Decedent refused to recognize the divorce as valid and at his request petitioner returned and lived with him as his wife for three years when they again separated. Some years later petitioner, not having heard from the decedent for many years and being informed that he was dead, remarried and lived with her second husband until she discovered that decedent was still alive, upon which she applied for and obtained an annulment of said second marriage. The Appellate Division held that petitioner was the widow of decedent and entitled to' letters of administration if otherwise found competent to act.
    
      John J. Dwyer for appellant.
    
      Joseph W. Murphy for respondent.
   Order affirmed, with costs; no opinion.

Concur: Hiscock, Ch. J., Chase, Collin, Cardozo, Pound, Crane and Andrews, JJ.