Case ID: ad_87/html/0099-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "\n      Goodrich, P. J.:", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Catherine L. Meeks, as Sole Qualifying Executrix, etc., of Joseph W. Meeks, Jr., Deceased, Respondent, v. Edwin B. Meeks, Individually and as Sole Surviving Executor of and Trusteunder the Last Will and Testament of Joseph W. Meeks, Sr., Deceased, and Others, Defendants, Impleaded with Sophia T. Hawkins, Appellant.
    
      Amended complaint, jüed, where additional parties cure- made .defendants — it is the complaint which a supplemental summons must require them to answer—what order of publication complies with the Code of Civil Procedure, section 453.
    After the service of a summons and complaint, additional parties were made defendants and the summons and complaint amended accordingly. Thereafter an order of publication was made directing the.service of a copy of the amended and supplemental summons and of the amended complaint on the additional parties defendant. The amended and supplemental summons required the additional parties defendant to answer the complaint.
    
      Held, that the order of publication complied with section 453 of the Code of Civil Procedure, which provides: “ Where the court directs a new defendant to be brought in, and the order is not made upon his own application, a supplemental summons must be issued, directed to him, and in the same form as an original summons, except that, in the body thereof, it must require the defendant to answer the original or the amended complaint, and the supplemental complaint, or either of them, as the case requires;”
    That at the time the order of publication was entered there was but one complaint, namely, the amended complaint, which was as effectual for all purposes as if it had been filed at the commencement of the action, and that such amended complaint'was the one which the additional parties defendant were required by the terms of the amended" and supplemental summons to answer..
    Appeal by the defendant, Sophia T. Hawkins, from an order of the Supreme Court, made at the Kings County Special Term and entered in the office of the clerk of the county of Kings on the 25th day of May, 1903, denying said defendant’s motion to vacate and set aside an order previously made in the action directing the service of the supplemental summons therein- by publication, and also denying her motion to vacate the service of said summons upon her pursuant to such order of publication.
    
      Jay E. Lawshe, for the appellant,
    
      Herbert T. Ketcham [Joseph E. Owens and James M. Gray with him on the brief], for the respondent.
   Goodrich, P. J.:

Sophia. T. Hawkins, named as one of the defendants, appearing for the purposes of the motion only, moved for an order vacating an order of publication of the supplemental summons in this action. The court denied the motion, and Mrs. Hawkins, with a similarly restricted notice, appeals therefrom.

The appellant was not named as a party in the original summons. The only original defendant was Edwin B. Meeks, as trustee, etc. Other parties, including Mrs. Hawkins, were subsequently added and the summons and complaint were amended accordingly. In March, 1903, the order of publication was made, which directed the service of a copy of the amended and supplemental summons and of the amended complaint on Mrs. Hawkins and some of the .other defendants. '■

The appellant contends that the order of publication was improperly granted because it did not comply with section 453 of the Code of Civil Procedure. That section, so far as pertinent to this appeal, reads : Where the court directs a new defendant to be brought in, and the order is not made upon his own application, a supplemental summons must be issued, directed to him, and in the same form as an original summons, except that,, in the body thereof, it must require the defendant to answer the original or the amended complaint, and the supplemental complaint, or either of them, as the case requires.”

When the order was entered there was but one complaint, and that was the amended complaint. Such a complaint becomes the only complaint between the parties and is as effectual for all subsequent purposes as if it had been filed at the commencement of the action. (Colvin v. Shaw, 79 Hun, 56.)

The amended and supplemental summons requires the appellant to answer the complaint, that is, the amended complaint, and there is no other or supplemental complaint. The order requiring the service of such summons by publication is a compliance with the provisions of section 453 above quoted.

The order should be affirmed, with costs. •

Woodward, Hirschberg, Jenks and Hooker, JJ., concurred.

Order affirmed, with ten dollars costs and disbursements.