Justice Michael D. Stallman
In a special proceeding, a judgment creditor claimed that a bank violated a restraining notice prohibiting transfers out of a bank of a judgment debtor. The bank was served with the restraining notice at a branch in New York, but the bank account of the judgment debtor was apparently maintained and accessible by the judgment debtor only in Canada. The bank relied on the “separate entity rule” precedent that recognized bank branches as separate legal entities for purposes of attachment and garnishment. The judgment creditor asserted that the rule is no longer good law. The court declined to abrogate the separate entity rule so as to hold that service of a restraining notice upon any bank branch in New York encompasses all of a bank’s branches, including those located outside the state of New York. The court therefore held that, under the rule, service of the restraining notice upon the bank’s branch in Manhattan did not restrain the debtor’s bank accounts in Canada.
