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161 A.D. 589

In re Ziegler

Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of the State of New York · decided 1914-04-03

Appeal by Florence Louise Ziegler from a decree of the Surrogate’s Court of the county of New York, entered in the office of said surrogate on the 17th day of October, 1913, denying petitioner’s application to vacate and set aside the agreement for and the consent of the surrogate to the abrogation of the adoption of said petitioner by William Ziegler, now deceased, and his wife, Electa M. Ziegler.

Cited by 1 later decisions — most recently January 1964

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1914-04-03

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Scott, J.:

¶1The matters at issue and the questions of law involved are so fully and satisfactorily dealt with in the opinion of Mr. Surrogate Fowler (82 Mise. Rep. 346), which we adopt, that any further discussion at the present time is unnecessary.

¶2We entertain some doubt, however, whether the Surrogate’s Court has jurisdiction to entertain the proceeding and to grant the relief desired. That court is one of strictly limited statutory jurisdiction and has no general equity powers. The proceedings, under the Domestic Relations Law (Gen. Laws, chap. 48 [Laws of 1896, chap. 272], § 66; now Consol. Laws, chap. 14 [Laws of 1909, chap. 19], § 116, as amd. by Laws of 1913, chap. 38), for the abrogation of an act of voluntary adoption consist of an agreement executed by the parties interested, and the consent of the county judge or the surrogate. They are not judicial in their character and the surrogate in giving his consent acts in his administrative and not in his judicial capacity, nor is the consent signed by him in any sense a decree or order of the Surrogate’s Court. If the attempted act of abrogation is insufficient under the statute it may be attacked even collaterally, in any proceeding, and if for any reason it be deemed necessary that it be revoked in a judicial proceeding only a court of equity would have jurisdiction so to revoke it.

¶3For this reason as well as for those so well stated by Mr. Surrogate Fowler, the order appealed from must be affirmed, with costs.

¶4Ingraham, P. J., Clarke, Dowling and Hotchkiss, JJ.. concurred.

¶5Decree affirmed, with costs.

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