Opinion
November 9, 1989
Appeal from the Supreme Court, New York County (David Saxe, J.).
In this action, plaintiffs, the wife and children of the first marriage of the decedent, a former teacher employed by the New York City Board of Education, sought to enjoin the New York City Board of Education and the New York City Teachers Retirement System and the U.F.T. Welfare Fund from paying the decedent's death benefits to the decedent's designated beneficiary, defendant Lois Heitner, the decedent's second wife.
Upon the definitive authority of Caravaggio v Retirement Bd. ( 36 N.Y.2d 348, 350), the court below properly determined that neither the decedent's contractual promise, in an earlier separation agreement, to designate the plaintiffs as irrevocable beneficiaries of his Retirement System death benefits nor defendant Lois Heitner's waiver of "all rights and claims" to the decedent's pension, in a subsequent separation agreement, could be invoked against the New York City Teachers Retirement System so as to compel payment of the death benefits to the plaintiffs herein. (Matter of Prouse v Misarti, 115 A.D.2d 867 [3d Dept 1985]; Matter of Demerritt v Levitt, 71 A.D.2d 757 [3d Dept 1979], lv denied 48 N.Y.2d 607; Administrative Code of City of New York § 13-558 [a].)
Concur — Ross, J.P., Carro, Asch, Kassal and Smith, JJ.