KUERSCHNER & RAUCHWARENFABRIK v. NY Trust Co.

• Decision Date: 02 June 1958
• Citation: 162 F. Supp. 481
• Parties: KUERSCHNER & RAUCHWARENFABRIK, A.G., Plaintiff, v. The NEW YORK TRUST COMPANY, Defendant. PANNONIA FUR FACTORY (Pannonia Szorme Arguyar), Plaintiff, v. The NEW YORK TRUST COMPANY, Defendant.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Southern District of New York

162 F. Supp. 481

KUERSCHNER & RAUCHWARENFABRIK, A.G., Plaintiff, v. The NEW YORK TRUST COMPANY, Defendant.

PANNONIA FUR FACTORY (Pannonia Szorme Arguyar), Plaintiff, v. The NEW YORK TRUST COMPANY, Defendant.

United States District Court S. D. New York.

June 2, 1958.

Doman & Van Heemstra, New York City, for plaintiff Kuerschner & Rauchwarenfabrik.

Wolf, Popper, Ross, Wolf & Jones, New York City, for plaintiff Pannonia Fur Factory.

White & Case, New York City, A. Hayne de Yampert, New York City, of counsel, for defendant New York Trust Co.

EDELSTEIN, District Judge.

In an action to recover the sum of $9,895.75 admittedly held, at the time of the filing of the complaint and for some time thereafter, by the defendant, The New York Trust Company, for the account of the plaintiff corporation, Kuerschner & Rauchwarenfabrik, A.G., the bank has moved for summary judgment. The plaintiff was a Hungarian corporation that was nationalized. Its funds in the defendant bank were frozen as of March 13, 1941, by executive order under the provisions of the Trading With The Enemy Act, 50 U.S.C.Appendix, § 1 et seq., 50 U.S.C.A.Appendix, § 1 et seq. On December 15, 1953, the two alleged sole surviving pre-nationalization stockholders procured a license from the Office of Alien Property authorizing the defendant to pay to them the amount held by it in the account in the name of the corporate plaintiff. The defendant declined to pay over the balance in the account because of notice of an adverse claim, and plaintiff brought suit. A second action was in fact commenced (after an order of this Court pursuant to § 51-a, subd. 4, New York Civil Practice Act as amended in 1949) by a party claiming to be the plaintiff in the first action under a new name to which it had changed in 1948 "pursuant to the duly enacted laws and decrees of Hungary." After a consolidation of the actions, the second action was discontinued on April 30, 1958. Meanwhile, on February 7, 1957, the balance in the account with the defendant in the name of the plaintiff, for which it sues to recover, was vested by the Attorney General of the United States under authority of Title II of the International Claims Settlement Act of 1949, as amended (69 Stat. 562), 22 U.S. C.A. § 1631 et seq.

If the balance in the account of the plaintiff has been vested by the Attorney General, then obviously the plaintiff no longer has a claim against the bank for that balance. But the plaintiff suggests that it is suing for...