Eredics v. Chase Manhattan Bank

• Decision Date: 04 March 2002
• Docket Number: 2,01-01888
• Parties: Rita Eredics a/k/a Rita Nicholas, respondent, v Chase Manhattan Bank, N.A., et al., defendants, Flushing Savings Bank, F.S.B., et al., appellants. 2001-01888 SUPREME COURT OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK APPELLATE DIVISION: SECOND JUDICIAL DEPARTMENT Argued -
• Court: New York Supreme Court — Appellate Division

Rita Eredics a/k/a Rita Nicholas, respondent v Chase Manhattan Bank, N.A., et al., defendants Flushing Savings Bank, F.S.B., et al., appellants

2001-01888

SUPREME COURT OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK

APPELLATE DIVISION: SECOND JUDICIAL DEPARTMENT

Argued - January 11, 2002

Decided on March 4, 2002

Randall T. Sims, New York, N.Y., for appellant Demos G. Nicholas, as executor of the estate of Nick G. Nicholas.

Vincent F. Nicolosi, Bayside, N.Y., for appellant Flushing Savings Bank, F.S.B.

Jaspan Schlesinger Hoffman, LLP, Garden City, N.Y. (Stanley Harwood of counsel), for respondent.

DECISION & ORDER

GABRIEL M. KRAUSMAN, J.P.

DANIEL F. LUCIANO

THOMAS A. ADAMS

SANDRA L. TOWNES, JJ.

In an action, inter alia, for a judgment declaring that title to various bank accounts vested in the plaintiff upon the death of Nick G. Nicholas, the defendant Demos G. Nicholas, as executor of the estate of Nick G. Nicholas, appeals from an order and judgment (one paper) of the Supreme Court, Nassau County (Austin, J.), dated January 25, 2001, which granted the plaintiff's motion for summary judgment, denied his cross motion for summary judgment, and, inter alia, directed the defendant Flushing Savings Bank, F.S.B., to pay over to the plaintiff funds held by it in certain bank accounts, and the defendant Flushing Savings Bank, F.S.B., separately appeals from the same order and judgment.

ORDERED that the appeal by Flushing Savings Bank, F.S.B., from so much of the order and judgment as denied that branch of the cross motion of Demos G. Nicholas, as executor of the estate of Nick G. Nicholas, which was for summary judgment with respect to the bank accounts at Chase Manhattan Bank, N.A., granted that branch of the plaintiff's motion which was for summary judgment with respect to those bank accounts, and directed Chase Manhattan Bank, N.A., to pay over to the plaintiff the funds it was holding in those accounts, is dismissed as it is not aggrieved by those portions of the order; and it is further,

ORDERED that the judgment is modified, on the law, by adding thereto a provision declaring that title to the accounts held by the decedent in trust for the plaintiff at Flushing Savings Bank, F.S.B., vested in the plaintiff upon the death of the decedent; as so modified, the judgment is affirmed, insofar as reviewed; and it is further,

ORDERED that the respondent is awarded one bill of costs.

The plaintiff and Nick G. Nicholas (hereinafter Nicholas) were married in 1975, and separated in 1990. The plaintiff was named as beneficiary in several revocable, or Totten, trust accounts established by Nicholas during the marriage at several banks, including Flushing Savings Bank, F.S.B. A formal separation...