← LexyCorpus index

LexyCorpus case page

The Ministers and Missionaries Benefit Board, Interpleader Plaintiff, v. Leon Snow Et Al., Appellants. Estate of Clark Flesher Et Al., Respondents

Citation: 26 N.Y.3d 466 · December 15, 2015 · US

Extracted case name
The Ministers and Missionaries Benefit Board, Interpleader Plaintiff, v. Leon Snow Et Al., Appellants. Estate of Clark Flesher Et Al., Respondents
Extracted reporter citation
26 N.Y.3d 466
Docket / number
pending
QDRO relevance 1/5Retirement relevance 5/5Family-law relevance 2/5gold label pending
Research-use warning: This page contains machine-draft public annotations generated from public opinion text. The headnote is not Willie-approved gold-label work product and is not legal advice. Verify the full opinion and current law before relying on it.

Machine-draft headnote

Machine-draft public headnote: The Ministers and Missionaries Benefit Board, Interpleader Plaintiff, v. Leon Snow Et Al., Appellants. Estate of Clark Flesher Et Al., Respondents is included in the LexyCorpus QDRO sample set as a public CourtListener opinion with relevance to family-law retirement/property division context. The current annotation is conservative: it identifies source provenance, relevance signals, and evidence quotes for attorney/agent retrieval. It is not a Willie-approved legal headnote yet.

Retrieval annotation

Draft retrieval summary: this opinion has QDRO relevance score 1/5, retirement-division score 5/5, and family-law score 2/5. Use the quoted text and full opinion below before relying on the case.

Category: family-law retirement/property division context

Evidence quotes

retirement benefits

t-of-laws principles and statutory choice-of-law directives, unless the parties expressly indicate otherwise. I. Plaintiff Ministers and Missionaries Benefit Board (MMBB) is a New York not-for-profit corporation, based in New York County, that administers a retirement plan and a death benefit plan for certain ministers and missionaries. Decedent Clark Flesher was a minister enrolled in both plans. He named his then-wife, defendant LeAnn Snow, as his primary beneficiary and her father, defendant Leon Snow, as the contingent beneficiary. Both plans state that they \shall be governed by

Source and provenance

Source type
courtlistener_qdro_opinion_full_text
Permissions posture
public
Generated status
machine draft public v0
Review status
gold label pending
Jurisdiction metadata
US
Deterministic extraction
reporter: 26 N.Y.3d 466
Generated at
May 14, 2026
View public source on courtlistener.com

Related public corpus pages

Deterministic links based on shared title/citation terms and QDRO / retirement / family-law retrieval scores.

Clean opinion text

=================================================================
This opinion is uncorrected and subject to revision before
publication in the New York Reports.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
No. 131
The Ministers and Missionaries
Benefit Board,
 Interpleader Plaintiff,
 v.
Leon Snow et al.,
 Appellants,
 v.
The Estate of Clark Flesher, et
al.,
 Respondents.

 Jesse T. Wilkins, for appellants.
 Brian Rosner, for respondents.

STEIN, J.:
 In IRB-Brasil Resseguros, S.A. v Inepar Invs., S.A. (20
NY3d 310 [2012], cert denied ___ US ___, 133 S Ct 2396 [2013]),
this Court held that, where parties include a New York
choice-of-law clause in a contract, such a provision demonstrates
the parties' intent that courts not conduct a conflict-of-laws

 - 1 -
 - 2 - No. 131

analysis (see id. at 312). We now extend that holding to
contracts that do not fall under General Obligations Law § 5-
1401, and clarify that this rule obviates the application of both
common-law conflict-of-laws principles and statutory
choice-of-law directives, unless the parties expressly indicate
otherwise.
 I.
 Plaintiff Ministers and Missionaries Benefit Board
(MMBB) is a New York not-for-profit corporation, based in New
York County, that administers a retirement plan and a death
benefit plan for certain ministers and missionaries. Decedent
Clark Flesher was a minister enrolled in both plans. He named
his then-wife, defendant LeAnn Snow, as his primary beneficiary
and her father, defendant Leon Snow, as the contingent
beneficiary. Both plans state that they \shall be governed by