New England Mutual Life Ins. Co. v. Woodworth

New England Mutual Life Insurance Co. v. Woodworth
Supreme Court of the United States
Argued March 18, 1884 Decided March 31, 1884
Full case name	New England Mutual Life Ins. Co. v. Woodworth, Adm'r etc.
Citations	111 U.S. 138 (more) 4 S. Ct. 364; 28 L. Ed. 379
Holding
Reaffirmed the general rule that simple contract debts, such as a policy of insurance not under seal, are, for the purpose of founding administration, assets where the debtor resides, without regard to the place where the policy is found.
Court membership
Chief Justice Morrison Waite Associate Justices Samuel F. Miller · Stephen J. Field Joseph P. Bradley · John M. Harlan William B. Woods · T. Stanley Matthews Horace Gray · Samuel Blatchford
Case opinions
Majority	Blatchford, joined by unanimous

New England Mutual Life Insurance Co. v. Woodworth, 111 U.S. 138 (1884), was a U.S. Supreme Court case.

On September 21, 1869, Ann E. Woodworth took out a life insurance policy on herself with the New England Mutual Life Insurance Company in Michigan. Her husband Stephen E. Woodworth was the beneficiary. She then died in New York, and her husband moved to Illinois. The company did not pay the policy, and he sued in Illinois. The Illinois court passed judgment against the insurance company. The insurance company appealed saying that the suit should not have been filed in Illinois.

The Supreme Court reaffirmed the general rule that simple contract debts, such as a policy of insurance not under seal, are, for the purpose of founding administration, assets where the debtor resides, without regard to the place where the policy is found.

The plaintiff, Stephen E. Woodworth, was both the Step-Father and Uncle of noted entomologist Charles W. Woodworth. C.W. Woodworth's mother became a widow and married her late husband's brother who was a widower. The judgment arrived when C.W. Woodworth was 19 and likely helped pay for his education at the University of Illinois.