Case Name: SCHLESINGER v. BOROUGH BANK OF BROOKLYN
Court: New York Supreme Court, Appellate Division
Jurisdiction: New York
Decision Date: 1906-03-22
Citations: 98 N.Y.S. 136
Docket Number: 
Parties: SCHLESINGER v. BOROUGH BANK OF BROOKLYN.
Judges: Argued before HIRSCHBERG, P. J., and WOODWARD, JENKS, RICH, and MILLER, JJ.
Reporter: West's New York Supplement
Volume: 98
Pages: 136–142

Head Matter:
(112 App. Div. 121)
SCHLESINGER v. BOROUGH BANK OF BROOKLYN.
(Supreme Court, Appellate Division, Second Department.
March 22, 1906.)
Pleadings — Answer—Time fob Amendment.
Under Code Civ. Proc. § 798, providing that where service of notice or pleading is by mail the adverse party has double the time specified for the doing of an act by him, and section 542, providing that, within 20 days after a pleading is served, or at any time before the period for answering it expires, it may be once amended by the party of course, where an answer is served by mail the defendant may amend it of course within 40 days.
[Ed. Note. — For cases in point, see vol. 39, Cent. Dig. Pleading, § 595.]
Jenks, J., dissenting.
Appeal from Special Term, Kings County.
Action by Leo Schlesinger, as receiver of the Federal Bank of New York, against the Borough Bank of Brooklyn. From an order permitting the defendant to amend its answer as of course, plaintiff appeals.
Affirmed.
Argued before HIRSCHBERG, P. J., and WOODWARD, JENKS, RICH, and MILLER, JJ.
Stillman F. Kneeland, for appellant.
John T. Smith, for respondent.

Opinion:
HIRSCHBERG, P. J.
I cannot concur either in the views expressed in the opinion of Mr. Justice JENKS or in the conclusion reached by him. The appeal is from an order made' by Mr. Justice Lambert, permitting the defendant to amend its answer as of course within 40 days of the time when it was served by mail. In making the order Mr. Justice Lambert wrote as follows:
"I feel coDstrained to follow the decision in Binder v. Met. St. R. R. Co., 68 App. Div. 281, 74 N. Y. Supp. 54, which in effect holds that service by mail operates to double the time of the party serving as well as his adversary. This decision disregards Toomey v. Andrews, 48 How. Prac. 332, and the reasons upon which the court rested its decision. It follows that the answer was served in time, and hence the motion is granted, but, owing to the confusion of authorities on the subject, without costs."
The case of Toomey v. Andrews, referred to by Mr. Justice Lambert, was a Special Term case, and was not well considered. The court appears to have been influenced by the fact that the original'answer in that case did not call for a reply, which the original answer in this case may have done for aught that appears upon the record. Whether or not the Binder Case was properly decided is a matter of no consequence on this appeal. It applied a settled rule of practice in relation to the amendment of pleadings to another question on assumed authority. If that decision was right, the decision herein was of course right; but, even if the Binder decision is wrong as applied to the question then before this court, tire decision herein at Special Term was nevertheless right, for it is in accordance with the statutory rule in this state ever since the existence of a Practice Code. That rule is not an unreasonable one, but is one well calculated to subserve the interests of both litigants and the courts. It provides, im effect, that a party may once amend a pleading as of course at any time before the time has expired for his adversary to demur to or answer it. The defendant in this case did not double its time to amend its answer by serving it by mail. The defendant by such service doubled the time of the plaintiff to respond to it by either demurrer or reply, and, if its own time to amend the answer was thereby doubled, it was not doubled by section 798 of the Code of Civil Procedure, but by virtue of section 542 of that Code.
It seems to me to be a serious mistake to suppose that the question at issue depends upon the construction to be placed upon section 798 of the Code of Civil Procedure. On the contrary, the question depends entirely upon the construction to be placed upon section 542 of the Code; in other words, the question of the right to serve an amended pleading as of course cannot be properly determined without considering or construing the section of the Code of Civil Procedure which confers that right. Section 798 relates generally to the time given or allowed to an adverse party to dp an act after notice or service either under the Code of Civil-Procedure or the general rules of practice, and it provides that, if the required notice is received by mail, the adverse party shall double the time which he would have had in case the service upon him had been made personally. The provision, of course, embraces the service of pleadings, and unquestionably gives to the party served with a pleading by mail 40 days' time in which to answer, reply, or demur to it; but the provision also includes the service of every other paper or notice which- is prescribed by the general rules' of practice or the Code of Civil Procedure. It was not intended óf' itself to double the time of the server of any paper for any purpose,whether the paper served be notice or pleading, nor has .it any relation, other than incidental, to the right of a party to serve an amended-pleading as of course. That right is given by section 542 of the Code of Civil Procedure, which provides, in effect, that any pleading may. be amended as of course at any time before the period for answering it has expired. If the pleading, therefore, shall have been served by-mail, the time to answer it will not expire until 40 days, and the pleader will consequently have 40 days' time within which to amend it, not because he has given himself double time under section 798, but because the Code has given him double time under section 543. This applies only to an amendment of a pleading, and has no necessary application to'the time allowed to either the server or the adverse party with respect to thé many other papers and notices which are included in the purview of section 798.
The right of a litigant to amend his pleading as of course at least once within the time allowed for his opponent to plead to it has been a part of the statute law of this state for nearly 60 years. In the Code of Procedure of 1848 the right was given by section 148, and the number of times when the pleading might be amended was not .prescribed; but it was enacted in the most comprehensive terms that any pleading might be amended at any time before the period for answering it shall have expired. The section was numbered 173 in 1849, and it was then amended so as to give the pleader not only the right to amend his pleading once at any time before the period for answering it had expired, but further extended his time to so amend it to 30 additional days after the answer or demurrer to the pleading had been served. The section, however, contained a further provision to the effect that, if it appeared that the amendment was made for the purpose of delay, or that the party would lose the benefit of a circuit or term for which the cause was noticed, the amendment might be stricken out, and such terms imposed as to the court might seem just. The language of the section was changed- by" subsequent amendments, which it is unnecessary to consider in detail. The distinctive features remained during the existence of the Code of Procedure, namely, a limit of the pleader to a single amendment as of course; an effective guard against the possibility of abuse of the privilege in the accomplishment of delay; and the extension of the period granted for the amendment to the time during which the opposite party had the privilege of answering the pleading in case such period exceeded 30 days.
The provision of the Code of Procedure allowing one amendment to a pleading as of course at any time before the period had expired in which to assail it, namely, to answer it by answer, demurrer, or reply, was re-enacted in the Code of Civil Procedure by section 543 in language even more comprehensive than that contained in the old Code. There is no indication to be found of any intent to change the law, or to take away this reasonable and salutary privilege. Mr. Throop makes no note of such intent, and had the intent existed, it is difficult to understand why the provisions of the former section should have been re-enacted. The present enactment is as follows:
"Within twenty days after a pleading, or the answer, demurrer, or reply thereto, is served, or at any time before the period for answering it expires, the pleading may be once amended by the party, of course, without costs and without prejudice to the proceedings already had."
- The English language furnishes no words which could have been employed to confer- more clearly upon the defendant in' this casé the fight to serve an amended answér in good faith within the period of 40 days which it had given to the plaintiff in which to demur or reply to the original answer served by mail. What the original answer was is not disclosed,, neither is the scope or nature of the proposed amendment. The original answer may have been demurrable, or it may have called for a reply, but the provision allowing an amendment as of course until the expiration of the time to answer is explicit and unequivocal ; the only qualification being that it shall not be for the purpose of delay, or to deprive the plaintiff of a term of court, neither of which is charged in this instance.
The decisions under the Code of Procedure were uniformly in harmony with the views herein expressed. They conflict with the Special Term decision in Toomey v. Andrews, supra, and also with the decision in Armstrong v. Phillips, 60 Hun, 243, 14 N. Y. Supp. 582. Ih the latter case the court fell into the same error as Mr. Justice JENKS in treating the question as though the party was giving himself double time by serving his answer through the mail, instead of treating it as a case in which the party gives his adversary double time by such service, and only receives equal time for a proper amendment in good faith by virtue of the positive law which allows him to so amend at any time before the period for attacking his pleading by counter-pleading has expired.
So far as there is any conflict of authority upon the question under consideration, the matter should be set at rest, and this can only be done by uniformity of ruling by the same members of the same court. The order appealed from is expressly based upon a unanimous decision of this court, and it also gives to the language of section 542 that broad and liberal interpretation which is prescribed by the Code of Civil Procedure. It is in the interest of ample opportunity for perfecting pleading without delaying the progress of litigation, and accomplishes a result which is both just and salutary. It is of importance that the court should be consistent, while it is of no great importance whether the amendment in this particular instance be allowed or not. This will be apparent on the reflection that, even if this court reverse this order, or if it affirm the order and it be subsequently reversed by the Court of Appeals, the defendant could even at that late day unquestionably obtain at Special Term leave to amend the answer if the amendment desired is material and proper, and could obtain such leave without costs, inasmuch as in taking the 40 days' time it relied upon a unanimous decision of this court. I vote for an affirmance of the order.
Order affirmed, with $10 costs and disbursements.
All concur, except JENKS, J., dissenting.