Case ID: misc_58/html/0191-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "MacLean, J. Bischoff, J.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

The Pittsburg Plate Glass Company, Respondent, v. David Ravitch et al., Appellants.
    (Supreme Court, Appellate Term,
    March, 1908.)
    Foreign corporations — Actions and proceedings — Evidence and burden of proof — Authority to do business in this State.
    Where, in an action by a foreign corporation, upon contract, the plaintiff’s allegation that it had obtained from the Secretary of State a certificate of compliance with the requirements of law to authorize it to do business in this State is denied and is not established by proof at the trial, the defendants are entitled to a dismissal of the complaint.
    Appeal by the defendants from a judgment for $522.50 and costs, recovered in the Municipal Court of the city of New York, ninth district, borough of Manhattan, and from an order denying defendants’ motion for a new trial under section 254 of the Municipal Court Act.
    Nicholas S. Aleinikoff, for appellants.
    Phillips & Avery, for respondent.
   MacLean, J.

In this action to recover for performance pursuant to a written contract with the defendants, the plaintiff, among other things, alleged that it was a foreign corporation and, as such, “ prior to the times hereinafter mentioned, duly obtained from the Secretary of the State of New York, a certificate that plaintiff had complied with all the requirements of law to authorize it to do business in this State.” This was- denied. Such allegation is essential as a condition precedent (Wood & Selick v. Ball, 190 N. Y. 217) and, being denied, an issue in the case. The motion to dismiss for failure of proof therefor at the close of the plaintiff’s case should have been granted;, and, though not specifically moved at the close of the whole case, the defendants were entitled to the direction of a verdict pursuant to motion, the. plaintiff failing to prove its compliance with section 15 of the General Corporation Law, which “ should be alleged and proved by a foreign corporation such as the plaintiff, in order to establish a cause of action in the courts of this State” (Wood & Selick v. Ball, supra, 225), the record disclosing no admission thereof. The judgment should, therefore, be reversed and the cause remanded.

Judgment reversed and new trial ordered, with costs to appellant to abide the event.

Gildersleeve, J., concurs.

Bischoff, J.

(concurring). The motion for dismissal of .the complaint, made upon the close of the plaintiff’s case, for failure of proof of compliance with the provisions of section 15 of the General Corporation Law (Laws of 1892, chap. 687), should have been granted; and the error of its denial was curable only by proof of such compliance subsequently introduced by either party, of which there was none. Obviously, the mere statement of the plaintiff’s counsel that counsel for the defendants had agreed to admit the fact of such compliance and to waive proof of it, made against the latter’s insistence upon a ruling, did not have the effect of such proof or a waiver of it.

The judgment should be reversed and a new trial ordered, with costs to the appellant to abide the event.

Judgment reversed and new trial ordered, with costs to appellant to abide event.