Opinion ID: 2002316
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: was the corporation, camille's coffee shop, inc., a de facto corporation after the revocation of its charter?

Text: The defendants argue that they should not be personally liable for the back rent since Camille's was a de facto corporation and was the entity with which Cedec, Inc. and later plaintiffs had done business. This claim is without merit. We have held in Pepin v. Donovan, 581 A.2d 717 (R.I. 1990), that the principal officer of a corporation who continued to do business under the corporate name after the corporation's charter had been revoked for failure to file its annual report was personally liable for taxes that had been assessed by the city of Warwick over a period of several years. We cited Poritzky v. Wachtel, 176 Misc. 633, 27 N.Y.S.2d 316 (1941), and Moore v. Occupational Safety & Health Review Commission, 591 F.2d 991 (4th Cir.1979), for the proposition that officers and directors who have continued a corporate business during the interval between revocation of a corporate charter and reinstatement would not be relieved from individual liability for debts incurred. In the case at bar this principle is even more strongly applicable since no reinstatement of the corporate charter of Camille's was either sought or obtained. The trial justice had ample evidence before him to support his finding that the office of the Secretary of State had sent notice to the corporate officers of the revocation of the articles of association for failure to file reports. Turchetta's statement that he had not received such a notice was insufficient to overcome the presumption that mail regularly sent from the office of the Secretary of State was received at the corporate offices listed on prior reports. Those who seek to insulate themselves from liability by utilizing a corporate form of business enterprise have a responsibility to see to it that reports are duly filed and that an attorney for service of process is appointed. Moreover, if one attorney is deceased, corporate officers have the responsibility to appoint a new one so that the Secretary of State's office may always have a responsible party to whom to send appropriate notices. We are also not persuaded by the suggestion that the holding in Pepin v. Donovan, supra , should be limited to tax liability. The claims of private creditors are also deserving of the protection of the law. Consequently the trial justice was correct in holding that Camille's was not a de facto corporation after the revocation of its articles of association.