Opinion
February 20, 1990
Appeal from the Surrogate's Court, Nassau County (Radigan, S.).
Ordered that the order is affirmed insofar as appealed from, with costs.
On October 3, 1987, the 16-year-old decedent, who resided with his mother in Long Beach, New York, died as a result of a fire at their home. The decedent's father is divorced from the mother and resides in Mexico. Thereafter, the mother petitioned the Surrogate for the granting of limited letters of administration for the purposes of commencing an action on behalf of the infant's estate to recover damages, inter alia, for wrongful death. The father cross-petitioned for the issuance of joint letters of administration so that he could seek appointment as a coadministrator of the estate.
We conclude that the court properly exercised its discretion in granting letters of administration solely to the mother (see, SCPA 1001, [5]; Matter of Jenks, 15 A.D.2d 450; Matter of Mishkin, 235 N.Y.S.2d 599, 601; Matter of De Hart, 8 Misc.2d 531, 531-533). We find that the best interests of the estate are served by this arrangement. As the court recognized, it would not be practicable to issue joint letters of administration because of the hostility between the mother and the father and because of the obvious difficulty which a person residing in Mexico would encounter in the administration of an estate in New York (see, Matter of Mishkin, supra; Matter of Berrios, 17 Misc.2d 681, 682, affd 9 A.D.2d 731, affd 8 N.Y.2d 1086).
In light of the foregoing, the parties' remaining contentions need not be addressed. Mollen, P.J., Brown, Kooper and Miller, JJ., concur.