Case Name: The Lake Geneva Ice Company, Appellant, v. Walter Selvage, Respondent
Court: New York Supreme Court, Appellate Term
Jurisdiction: New York
Decision Date: 1899-07
Citations: 28 Misc. 581
Docket Number: 
Parties: The Lake Geneva Ice Company, Appellant, v. Walter Selvage, Respondent.
Judges: 
Reporter: New York Miscellaneous Reports
Volume: 28
Pages: 581–582

Head Matter:
The Lake Geneva Ice Company, Appellant, v. Walter Selvage, Respondent.
(Supreme Court, Appellate Term,
July, 1899.)
Municipal Court of New York— Jurisdiction — Foreign corporation may sue but cannot be sued.
A foreign corporation cannot be sued in the Municipal Court of the city of New York for the reason that it is not a resident of the county of New York, but there is no constitutional or statutory provision which precludes it from suing in said court, as it might in a County Court.
Appeal from a judgment dismissing the complaint rendered in the Municipal Court of the city of New York, second district, borough of Manhattan.
W. C. Beecher and Samuel Scoville, Jr., for appellant.
William B. Ellison and Oliver B. Goldsmith, for respondent.

Opinion:
Per Curiam.
In an action to recover damages for breach of -contract, the complaint was dismissed upon the ground that the •court was without jurisdiction, as the plaintiff -was a foreign corporation. The justice regarded the case of Rieser v. Parker & Co., 27 Misc. Rep. 205, as controlling his decision. That view is based upon a misconception of the scope of that authority. That case has reference only to a foreign corporation defendant. It was there held that the attempt by the Legislature to grant jurisdiction to the Municipal Court of the city of Yew York over a foreign, corporation defendant was unconstitutional, as it bestowed powers-in excess of those possessed by the County Courts, by which the-jurisdiction of the Municipal Court is limited. The Municipal Court can have no jurisdiction over a non-resident defendant, because the County Courts have none. There is nothing in the Constitution restricting the County Courts from entertaining the-action of a non-resident plaintiff, and, in the absence of constitutional prohibition, those courts would have had jurisdiction over non-resident defendants. Irwin v. Metropolitan Street Railway Company, 38 App. Div. 253, at p. 255.
The judgment must be reversed.
Present: Ebeedman, P. J.; MacLean and Leventbitt, JJ.
Judgment reversed and new trial ordered, with costs to appellant to abide event.