Grand Duke Boris starts lawsuit to gain funds

Embed from Getty Images 

 August 18, 1929

Grand Duke Boris Wladimirovich of Russia today "started an unusual suit against the National City Bank for some $25,000," according to the Los Angeles Times.

The Grand Duke is the younger brother of Grand Duke Kirill, the pretender to the Russian throne.

His New York attorney, Theodore F. Van Dorn has served the bank with a summons and complaint "in which he demanded return of $100,000 rubles, valued at about $13.000 in American money," as well as the interest since 1918. He states he deposited the money in the Petrograd branch of the bank in 1917, before the Russian revolution forced "surviving Russian nobles to flee the country."

The branch, due to the "chaotic state of affairs" in Russia, was "forced to discontinue business. According to Boris' suit, the National City Bank, based in New York City, "failed to establish mediums whereby fugitive depositors could recover their money."