Case Name: Peter Johnson, Respondent, v. Metropolitan Street Railway Company, Appellant
Court: New York Supreme Court, Appellate Division
Jurisdiction: New York
Decision Date: 1900
Citations: 56 A.D. 286
Docket Number: 
Parties: Peter Johnson, Respondent, v. Metropolitan Street Railway Company, Appellant.
Judges: 
Reporter: Appellate Division Reports
Volume: 56
Pages: 286–289

Head Matter:
Peter Johnson, Respondent, v. Metropolitan Street Railway Company, Appellant.
Laches — what is not laches in procuring an order requiring a non-resident to give security for costs.
Where, in an action begun "on August seventh, in which the complaint was served on September twentieth, the defendant’s time to answer was extended on October seventeenth for fifteen days, and an order, requiring the plaintiff, a non-resident, to give security for costs, was procured on October twenty-sixth,
' before the answer was served tin the thirtieth of that month, such order, should not be vacated upon the ground of laches on the part of the defendant in procuring it.
Hatch, J., dissented.
Appeal by the defendant, the Metropolitan Street Railway Company, from an order of the Supreme Court, made at the New York Special Term and entered in the office of the clerk of the county of New York on the 20th day of November, 1900, vacating an order requiring the plaintiff to give security for costs.
Charles F. Brown, for the appellant.
Carl Fischer Hansen, for the respondent.

Opinion:
Rumsey, J.:
This action was begun on the Ith of August, 1900. The complaint was served on the 29th of September, 1900. The defend-, ant's time to answer was extended on the seventeenth of October for fifteen days. The order requiring the plaintiff to give - security for costs was procured on the twenty-sixth of October, before the answer was served, and the answer was served on the thirtieth day of October. The court vacated the order requiring the plaintiff to give security, upon the ground of laches.
We think the decision was erroneous. The rule is settled in this department that the absolute right of the defendant to require a non-resident plaintiff to give security for costs is waived, unless the order is applied.for before answer. (Henderson, Hull & Co. v. McNally, 33 App. Div. 132.) The defendant complied with this rule and obtained the order within the time required by it. The affidavits upon which the order was obtained were sufficient to waiv rant it, and in the absence of any proof on the part of the plaintiff to overthrow the facts'stated in those affidavits, there was nothing to deprive the defendant of the right to have security.
The order appealed from must, therefore, be reversed, with ten dollars costs and disbursements, and the motion to vacate the order requiring security for costs denied, with ten dollars costs.
Yah Brunt, P. J., Patterson and Ingraham, JJ., concurred; Hatch, J., dissented.