Case ID: ad_55/html/0329-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Adams, P. J.:", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

C. Sidney Shepard and Others, Respondents, v. Harmon H. Fulton, Appellant.
    
      Corporation — liability of a director who fails to file an annual report — when not affected by section 34 of the Stock Corporation 'Law.
    
    Section 34 of the Stock Corporation Law (Laws of 1892, chap. 688), added by-chapter 354 of the Laws of 1899, does not affect an action, commenced before and actually pending at the time of its enactment, to charge a director of a corporation with liability for an omission to file the annual report or the verified certificate, required by section 30 of the Stock Corporation Law.
    Appeal by the defendant, Harmon H. Fulton, from a judgment of the Supreme Court in favor of the plaintiffs, entered in the office
    
      of the clerk of the county of Erie on the 3d day of May, 1900, upon the decision of the court rendered after a trial before the court without a jury at the Erie Trial Term, the parties having waived a jury trial.
    Reynolds, Stanchfield & Collin,, for the appellant.
    
      Irving W. Cole, for the respondents.
   Adams, P. J.:

This action was brought to recover of the defendant, who was a director of a corporation known as the Eclipse Electric Lamp Com-, pany, certain corporate debts for which it is claimed he is liable by reason of an omission to file either the annual report or the verified certificate as required by section 30 of. the Stock Corporation Law.

No controversy arises over the facts of the case, the sole contention of the defendant being that, by the amendment to the Stock ■Corporation Law enacted in 1899' (Laws of 1892, chap. 688, as amd. by Laws of 1899, chap. 354, adding § 34 thereto) the right, to recover the penalty for a violation of the requirements of section 30 was abrogated, in consequence of which the plaintiffs’ complaint should have been dismissed.

The action was commenced on February 3, 1899, and the act of 1899 above referred to was not passed until April eighteenth of that year, and went into effect on that day. The question, therefore, which this appeal presents calls for a determination of the effect of that statute upon actions which were commenced before and were actually pending at the time of its enactment.

This precise question has recently been decided adversely to the appellant’s contention by the Appellate Division of the first department in two cases (St. George Vineyard Co. v. Fritz, 48 App. Div. 233; Gundlach-Bundschu Wine Co. v. Fritz, 49 id. 647), and those cases, until reversed, must be regarded as controlling upon this court.

Without, therefore, discussing the various propositions advanced by the counsel in their respective briefs, we feel ourselves constrained to follow the decisions above referred to and to affirm the judgment appealed from.

All concurred.

Judgment affirmed, with costs.