Case Name: Rubenstein v. Kahn
Court: New York Court of Common Pleas
Jurisdiction: New York
Decision Date: 1893-11
Citations: 5 Misc. 408
Docket Number: 
Parties: Rubenstein v. Kahn.
Judges: 
Reporter: New York Miscellaneous Reports
Volume: 5
Pages: 408–410

Head Matter:
Rubenstein v. Kahn.
(New York Common Pleas—General Term,
November, 1893.)
Subject to the approval of the board of excise which granted a liquor license, it may be assigned.
Plaintiff waived his right to a transfer of a liquor license, and consented to a transfer of the license to defendant on his promise to pay plaintiff §175. The .transfer was subsequently effected and approved by the board of excise. Held, that plaintiff was entitled to recover the sum agreed to be paid him.
Appeal from a judgment for plaintiff recovered in the District Court in the city of New York for the fifth judicial district.
Action to recover 'the sum agreed to be paid upon the sale and transfer of an excise license with the approval of the board of excise.
Philip Gratz, Jr., for plaintiff (respondent).
J. C. J. Langbein, for defendant (appellant).

Opinion:
Bischoff, J.
While as a general rule a license issued by state or municipal authority for the sale of beer, wines and spirituous liquors, involves the granting of a mere personal privilege depending upon the licensee's possession of the prescribed qualifications, and so is incapable of assignment and of barter and sale (13 Am. & Eng. Ency. of Law, 514; Myer Vested Rights, § 1356 ; Metropolitan Board of Police v. Barrie, 34 N. Y. 657), the existing excise laws of this state distinctly grant and recognize the licensee's right to sell and transfer his license to another subject to the approval of the board of excise. Laws of 1892, chap. 401, § 26, as amended by Laws of 1893, chap. 480.
In substance, plaintiff testified that defendant had promised to pay him $175 for the transfer to defendant, with the approval of the board of excise, of a liquor license issued to one Joseph Hudes for the premises 21 Suffolk street in the city of New York, in which license plaintiff at the time claimed to have a qualified ownership by transfer from-Hudes, which last-mentioned transfer had not yet • been approved as •above stated to be requisite. It is unchallenged, in fact, conceded, that the transfer to defendant was subsequently effected and approved by the board of excise. It also appears in evidence that plaintiff was induced by defendant's promise to waive his own rights in the matter, and to consent to the transfer to defendant. We can conceive of no valid ground, therefore, for holding that plaintiff was not entitled to recover for defendant's refusal to pay the sum agreed.
It was wholly immaterial that Hudes may have included his license among the goods and chattels mortgaged by him to the Budweiser Brewing Company and others while defendant accepted a transfer of the license and received it unimpaired by Hudes' attempted incumbrance. Nor do we discover anything so inherently improbable in plaintiff's assertions at the trial that we would feel justified to reverse a judgment in his favor as against the weight of the evidence only because in some particulars he was contradicted by several witnesses for the defense, each of whom was either directly or indirectly interested in the event of the action in defendant's favor.
The judgment should be affirmed, with costs.