Case Name: In the Matter of the Application of The City of New York, Appellant, for a Writ of Certiorari to Elbert Sloat and Others, as Assessors of the Town of Carmel, County of Putnam and State of New York, Respondents
Court: New York Supreme Court, Appellate Division
Jurisdiction: New York
Decision Date: 1907-01-18
Citations: 116 A.D. 815
Docket Number: 
Parties: In the Matter of the Application of The City of New York, Appellant, for a Writ of Certiorari to Elbert Sloat and Others, as Assessors of the Town of Carmel, County of Putnam and State of New York, Respondents.
Judges: 
Reporter: Appellate Division Reports
Volume: 116
Pages: 815–816

Head Matter:
In the Matter of the Application of The City of New York, Appellant, for a Writ of Certiorari to Elbert Sloat and Others, as Assessors of the Town of Carmel, County of Putnam and State of New York, Respondents.
Second Department,
January 18, 1907.
Certiorari—insufficiency of petition — proper remedy.
The object of a petition in certiorari is to obtain the writ, and if the petition be insufficient the respondent’s remedy is by motion to quash the writ before making return thereto. If issue be joined by making a return, the insufficiency of the petition is waived.
Appeal by the petitioner, The City of New York, 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 Putnam on the 24th day of March, 1906, quashing a writ of certiorari theretofore issued in the above-entitled proceeding.
The writ is to the assessors of the town of Carmel, Putnam county, and was granted under section 250 of the Tax Law (Laws of 1896, chap. 908) to review the assessment of real property of thé relator. The assessors made return to the writ. Thereafter the matter came on for hearing on the petition, writ and return, and the court quashed the writ.
I. J. Beaudrias [William B. Ellison with him on the brief] for the appellant.
George E. Anderson Clayton Ryder with him on the brief] for the respondents.

Opinion:
Gaynor, J.:
The court quashed the writ on the ground that the petition did not specify each parcel of the petitioner's land sepai'ately and claim that it was overvalued, but grouped them and alleged that the petitioner's land was overvalued.
The petition is only to get the writ,, and if it be insufficient to authorize the writ to be granted a motion should be made to dis miss it and quash the'. Writ before making return. If instead the assessors join issue on the writ by making return to it they waive , the insufficiency of the petition. Such is the present' ease,
The order should be reversed.
Woodward, Jenks, Hooker and High, JJ., concurred,
Order reversed, with ten dollars costs and1 disbursements.