Case Name: H. KOEHLER & CO. v. CLEMENT
Court: New York Supreme Court, Appellate Division
Jurisdiction: New York
Decision Date: 1908-05-22
Citations: 111 N.Y.S. 151
Docket Number: 
Parties: H. KOEHLER & CO. v. CLEMENT.
Judges: 
Reporter: West's New York Supplement
Volume: 111
Pages: 151–153

Head Matter:
(125 App. Div. 886.)
H. KOEHLER & CO. v. CLEMENT.
(Supreme Court, Appellate Division, First Department.
May 22, 1908.)
Intoxicating Liquors—Rebate on Subbender of Tax Certifioate—“Conviction.”
A finding of guilty on which no judgment has been entered, sentence having been suspended, is a conviction within Liquor Tax Law, Laws 1896, p. 65, c. 112, as amended by Laws 1900, p. 857, c. 367, § 23, subd. 1, cl. “d,” providing that a liquor tax certificate shall not be issued to one who has been convicted of a violation of that law within three years prior to his application, and the person found guilty is not a person “authorized to sell liquors under the provisions of the act” within section 25, providing for the surrender and cancellation of a liquor tax certificate by a person authorized to sell liquors under the provisions of the act and the payment of a rebate on such certificate.
[Ed. -Note.—For other definitions, see Words and Phrases, vol. 2, pp. 1584-1591.]
Clarke, J., dissenting.
Appeal from Special Term.
Application of H. Koehler & Co. for a peremptory writ of mandamus against Maynard H. Clement, as commissioner of excise. From an order denying the same, H. Koehler & Co. appeal.
Affirmed.
Argued before INGRAHAM, McLAUGHLIN, LAUGHLIN, CLARKE, and SCOTT, JJ.
Charles Goldzier, for appellant.
Herbert H. Kellogg, for respondent.

Opinion:
SCOTT, J.
The relators, as assignees of a liquor tax certificate issued to one Joe Levy, seek to compel the payment of a rebate under the provisions of section 25 of the liquor .tax law (Laws 1897, p. 225, c. 312). Their application is resisted upon the ground that said Levy was not "authorized to sell liquors under the provisions of the act," because he falsely stated in his application for the certificate on April 19, 1907, "that he had not been convicted of a violation of said law within three years prior to the date of his application." See clause "d," subd. 1, § 23, Liquor Tax Law; Laws 1896, p. 65, c. 112, as amended by Laws 1900, p. 857, c. 367. If this statement was untrue, the application for a writ was properly denied. People ex rel. Ochs v. Hilliard, 81 App. Div. 73, 80 N. Y. Supp. 792. It is undisputed that on February 19, 1905, the said Levy was tried in the Court of Special Sessions upon a charge of having violated the liquor tax law, and was found guilty, but that sentence was suspended, and has never been imposed, and that the time within which sentence thereon could have been imposed had expired when the alleged false statement was made. Section 470, Code Civ. Proc.; chapter 651, p. 1469, Laws 1893. The question is whether the finding of guilty by the court, in this case equivalent to the verdict of a jury, although not followed by judgment, is a conviction under section 25 of the liquor tax law. A similar question, involving the right to vote, has recently been decided by this court (People, etc., v. Fabian, 124 App. Div. -, 111 N. Y. Supp. 140), and by analogy with that case it would appear that Levy was convicted of a violation of the liquor tax law within three years before he applied for a certificate, and that his statement to the contrary was false.
It follows that the order appealed from must be affirmed, with $10 costs. All concur, except CLARKE, J., who dissents.