Opinion
November 22, 1907.
John H. Corwin, for the appellant.
August P. Wagener, for the respondent.
The defendant appeals from a judgment of the Municipal Court, rendered upon its default, and asserts that the plaintiff failed to show personal service of the summons upon it. The only proof of service was a written admission signed by the Superintendent of Insurance of service "of process * * * in behalf of James J. McKeever as admr.," etc. But this alleged admission of service was fatally defective as it did not identify the process served. The complaint alleges that the defendant is a foreign corporation, but there is no allegation that it has an office in the city of New York, as it would have to have in order to give the Municipal Court jurisdiction (Mun. Ct. Act, § 1, subd. 18), nor is there any proof that it is an insurance corporation or that it has executed and filed the written appointment provided for in section 30 of the Insurance Law (Laws of 1892, chap. 690). We do not assent to the proposition argued by the appellant that service of the summons on the Superintendent of Insurance at Albany would not give the court jurisdiction in any case for not being service within the city, but think that such service would have to be deemed service within the city in case the other jurisdictional facts were shown. In other words, said section 30 of the Insurance Law was intended to provide a way of obtaining personal service on a foreign insurance corporation, and such service should be deemed to be made within the territorial jurisdiction of the court issuing the process. But this judgment must be reversed for failure to show the jurisdictional facts hereinbefore stated.
HIRSCHBERG, P.J., WOODWARD, JENKS and HOOKER, JJ., concurred.
Judgment of the Municipal Court reversed, with costs.