Case Name: VAN NOSTRAND et al. v. VAN NOSTRAND et al.
Court: New York Supreme Court, Appellate Division
Jurisdiction: New York
Decision Date: 1907-07-23
Citations: 105 N.Y.S. 798
Docket Number: 
Parties: VAN NOSTRAND et al. v. VAN NOSTRAND et al.
Judges: 
Reporter: West's New York Supplement
Volume: 105
Pages: 798–802

Head Matter:
(121 App. Div. 262)
VAN NOSTRAND et al. v. VAN NOSTRAND et al.
(Supreme Court, Appellate Division, Second Department.
July 23, 1907.)
Appeal—Dismissal—Failure to Substitute fob Deceased Pasty.
Under Code Oiv. Proc. § 1297, providing that, where the adverse party has died since the making of the order appealed from, an appeal may be taken, but it cannot be heard till the heir, devisee, executor, or administrator, as the case requires, has been substituted as the respondent, the motion for substitution having been defeated, the appeal will be dismissed.
[Ed. Note.—For' cases in point, see Cent. Dig. vol. 3, Appeal and Error, § 3121.]
• Hooker, J., dissenting.
Appeal from Special Term, Kings County.
Action by Gardiner Van Nostrand, individually and as one of the executors and trustees under the will of John J. Van Nostrand, deceased, and'others, against Frances Stanton Van Nostrand and others. From part of an order, defendant Anabel Gardiner Van Nostrand appeals.
Dismissed.
Argued before WOODWARD, HOOKER, RICH, MILLER, and GAYNOR, JJ.
Henry Hirschberg, for appellant.
George R. Brewster, for respondents.

Opinion:
GAYNOR, J.
This action was brought in 1889 to construe the will of John J. Van Nostrand. Judgment was entered May 8, 1889, and it and the findings were amended by Mr. Justice Cullen, the trial judge, sitting as a court, by an order dated June 8, 1889, changing the word "children'' to "legal heirs," to conform to the exact terms of the will, the word "children" having been used by inadvertence.
Nothing further was done in the action for nearly 18 years, viz., until January .22, 1907, when the defendant Anabel Gardiner Van Nostrand, this appellant, took an appeal from the said order. Meanwhile every one acquiesced,' and the estate of the said testator had been administered in accordance with the said judgment and order, and the executors and trustees had followed the same; three of the four plaintiffs had died; the attorney for the plaintiffs had also died, and his papers in the action cannot be found; the guardian ad litem for three of the defendants, infants when the action was begun, had died, and his papers and those of his attorney in the action cannot be found; the other defendant, also then an infant, and represented by a guardian ad litem, and the attorney of the said guardian, a member of a firm, had also died, and their papers in the action cannot be found, and the said firm had been dissolved.
Another defendant, John J. Van Nostrand, grandson of the testator, to whom a share in trust was left by the said will, the principal to go to his "heirs," had also died in February, 1906. He left his mother-, Louise B. Van Nostrand, his sole heir, and executor of his will, and letters were issued to her.
After taking such appeal on January 22, 1907, the appellant made a motion for the substitution of the said Louise B. Van Nostrand, as executor of the said John J. Van Nostrand, deceased grandchild, which substitution has to be made before the appeal can be heard (Code Civ. Proc. § 1297); but the motion was denied by the Special Term for laches. The appeal is noxv brought on xvithout any rexdvor or substitution for the said deceased grandchild, notwithstanding the said code provision to the -contrary. If the said order amending the judgment should be reversed (and it is from that that the appeal is), and the xvord "children" thereby restored to the judgment instead of the word "heirs," as the xvill reads, the property left in trust to such grandchild, with remainder so limited to his "children," would not go to his mother, his only heir, but to his collaterals, under the said xvill of his grandfather, of whom this appellant is one.
The appellant was about 25 years of age when she took this appeal on January 22, 1907. Her appeal, taken nearly 18 years after the order appealed from xvas entered, may have been still open to her if the time for it was not limited to 30 days by service of notice of entry of the order appealed from (Code Civ. Proc. § 1351); a thing difficult, if not impossible, to now establish after the lapse of so much time, and the deaths, and the losses of papers, which have occurred meanwhile. Nevertheless, as the said code section provides, the appeal cannot be heard unless the heir, devisee, executor or administrator of the- deceased adverse party be substituted, and it will be noticed that all of the other parties are now adverse to the said mother of the said deceased party, for they, instead of her, get the share that was put in trust for him, if it does not go to his heir, i. e" his said mother. The court below denied the motion to substitute his said mother for laches, and such a motion may be denied for laches. Shipman v. Long Island R Co., 11 App. Div. 46, 39 N. Y. Supp. 498, 41 N. Y. Supp. 1131; Pringle v. Long Island R. Co., 157 N. Y. 100, 51 N. E. 435.
We cannot hear this appeal, or make any binding judgment herein, without such substitution being first made. We should therefore refuse to hear it.
* Since the foregoing was written a motion has been made to dismiss the appeal, due proof of the service of the order appealed from, with notice of entry thereof, on the guardian ad litem of the appellant on June 31, 1889, having been found.
The appeal should be dismissed.
Appeal dismissed, with $10 costs.and disbursements. "All concur except HOOKER, J., who dissents.