Case Name: Stoker v. Schwab
Court: New York Superior Court
Jurisdiction: New York
Decision Date: 1888-06-20
Citations: 1 N.Y.S. 425
Docket Number: 
Parties: Stoker v. Schwab.
Judges: 
Reporter: West's New York Supplement
Volume: 1
Pages: 425–426

Head Matter:
Stoker v. Schwab.
(Superior Court of New York City, General Term.
June 20, 1888.)
Corporations—De Facto Corporation—Power to Convey Land.
A church was organized, and the certificate duly recorded under 2 Rev. St. (6th ltd.) 413; 7th Ed, 1654, which provides that the two members of the church who preside at the first election of trustees shall, as returning officers, certify under their hands and seals certain matters, which certificate shall be recorded, and thereupon the trustees shall be a body corporate. The record did not show any seals affixed, and the original certificate was lost. The trustees purchased and paid for land which they afterwards sold under an order from the supreme court. Held, that they were a corporation defacto, and conveyed a good title. Freedman, J., dissenting.
Submission on agreed statement of facts.
Action brought by Bichard Stoker against Samuel Schwab, to enforce a contract for the sale of land. The parties agreed on a statement of facts, and submitted the controversy to the court.
Argued before Sedgwiok, C. J., and Truax and Freedman, JJ.
Ferdinand Kurzman, for plaintiff. Maurice Rapp, for defendant.

Opinion:
Sedgwick, C. J.
The question is whether the plaintiff had a title which he could convey. The objection is that his right comes through a deed by a grantor called "St. Paul's African Methodist Episcopal Church," and that such grantor was not a corporation with legal capacity to take and convey real estate. There was a charter providing for the formation of such religious corporations. A certificate was filed in pursuance of statute, which would have legally created the corporation, if it had in all respects complied with the statute. The corporation acted as a corporation under the statute and the certificate. It was therefore a corporation defacto at the least capable of taking real estate and conveying with the permission of the supreme court. In this case, the permission was obtained. The only defect created is that the certificate was not sealed as it is said is required by the statute. This does not prevent action and continuance of a corporation defacto. Yo one has an interest in the title excepting, by supposition, the grantor of the corporation. Having received the consideration of the deed from the grantee as a corporation, he could be estopped from asserting that it was not a corporation. The plaintiff should have judgment, with costs.
Truax, J., concurred.