Neto v. Thorner

OPINION AND ORDER

ROBERT P. PATTERSON, Jr., District Judge.

This motion for summary judgment presents the following question of New York law: when a foreigner dies testate, does New York law or the law of the decedent’s domicile govern the disposition of the assets of the decedent’s Totten trust? 1

In 1963, Berthold Falk opened a Totten trust for the benefit of Gerald Thorner in the New York branch of what later became the National Westminster Bank. 2 Twenty-two years later, on November 14, 1985, Falk died in Sao Paulo. A will under Falk’s name dated January 17, 1985, unsigned, but apparently…