Case Name: BAKER v. METROPOLITAN LIFE INS. CO. et al.
Court: New York Supreme Court, Appellate Division
Jurisdiction: New York
Decision Date: 1906-03-09
Citations: 97 N.Y.S. 1088
Docket Number: 
Parties: BAKER v. METROPOLITAN LIFE INS. CO. et al.
Judges: 
Reporter: West's New York Supplement
Volume: 97
Pages: 1088–1091

Head Matter:
BAKER v. METROPOLITAN LIFE INS. CO. et al.
(Supreme Court, Appellate Division, First Department.
March 9, 1906.)
Insurance—Action on Policy—Evidence—Sufficiency.
In an action on a life insurance policy, evidence held insufficient to sustain plaintiff’s claim that the policy was given her by her deceased husband in consideration of marriage.
O’Brien, P. J., dissenting. . . ■
Appeal from Special Term, New York County.
Action by Mary Baker against the Metropolitan Life Insurance Com pany and others. From a judgment for defendants, plaintiff appeals.
Affirmed.
Argued before O’BRIEN, P. J., and McLAUGHLIN, PATTERSON, LAUGHLIN, and HOUGHTON, JJ.
John McG. Goodale, for appellant.
L. J. Langbein, for respondents.

Opinion:
PATTERSON, J.
The plaintiff claiming to be the owner thereof, sued upon a policy or certificate of life insurance issued by the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company of the city of New York. That policy was issued in 1884, to Adam Baker, and it recited that it was so issued in consideration of representations and agreements in a printed and written application for the policy and in consideration of a premium to be paid at certain times. In the application, Adam Baker stated that he was a married man, and that the person to whom the benefit was to be paid was his wife. At that time, he was married to Rose Baker, who died on or about the 12th of February, 1886. He married the plaintiff in August, 1904. It does not appear that the beneficiary named in the policy was ever changed. The plaintiff sued the insurance company, which admitted its liability, and set up that other persons made claim to the amount of the policy, such other persons being the individual defendants in this action; that the plaintiff had been appointed administratrix of the goods, etc., of her deceased husband, and the matter in contest, as it eventually shaped itself on the trial, involved only the inquiry, whether the plaintiff was entitled to the amount of the policy individually or should receive it as administratrix. The court below adjudged that she was entitled to the money only in the latter capacity.
The judgment should be affirmed. It is claimed by the plaintiff that the policy was given to her by Adam Baker in consideration of her promise to marry him. The proof on that subject is insufficient to substantiate that claim. The only evidence in that regard was in the testimony of the witness Mary Sullivan, who states that Baker said in her hearing that if the plaintiff would marry him he had nothing else to offer but his insurance, and his only desire was that none of his children should get it. On her cross-examination, however, it appears that that statement was made in February, 1901, and the plaintiff was not married to Baker until 1904.' There is not a syllable of proof to show that the policy ever was delivered to the plaintiff as a gift. She had been married to Baker only four months when he died. She says she paid the premiums quarterly—50 cents a week. Proof of delivery is entirely wanting and the judgment of the court below, as the case was tried, that she was entitled to the amount represented by the policy only as administratrix, was clearly justified.
The judgment appealed from should be affirmed, with costs.
McLAUGHLIN, LAUGHLIN, and HOUGHTON, JJ., concur.