Court Opinion

ID: 9788898
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 01:21:51.163487+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:37:17.322756
License: Public Domain

OPALA, J.,
concurring in the result of the court's opinion.
T1 The court holds today that 1) the trial court erred when it denied H-80's motion to vacate the judgment and 2) H 30's due process rights were violated when its request for time to pay a delinquent franchise tax came to be rejected, all of which resulted in H-80's loss of right to defend against the claim. 68 ©.S.1991 § 1212(c)1 While I do not recede *1057from the court's ultimate disposition on cer-tiorari, I cannot join its pronouncement. I hence write separately to offer my analysis of the law that governs this case.
12 The requirements of due process and notice have no place in my analysis. H-30 presumably had notice of its lapsed-franchise status,2 and its notice was the lawyer's notice.3 H-80's counsel never denied his client's loss of corporate status but merely asked for additional time to cure the charter's suspension in order to secure reinstatement of its right to defend against the claim.
13 Neither was the element of surprise of any moment here except perhaps insofar as H-30 might have been unaware that its suspended status came to Corman's knowledge. In the course of litigation, a loss of charter cannot be a surprise to one charged with actual knowledge or, at a minimum, with constructive knowledge of one's delinquency. The burden rests on the corporate taxpayer to show its lack of notice H-80's lawyer should have gone forward to show that the client had no notice of the tax delinquency; only by tendering that fact could H-830 have injected the element of surprise into this case. We presume, for lack of proof to the contrary, that the corporation had knowledge of its delinquency, but, if it indeed utterly lacked notice, the burden of proving absence of knowledge was to be borne by the corporation. Here, the law's requirement for notice to H-80 clearly has not been triggered by laying the necessary probative predicate.4
14 This case calls for our answer to the question of what a judge should do when the delinquent taxpayer-plaintiff or defendant-appears for trial and a challenge is raised to its corporate status by reliance on § 1212(c). Should the charter's lapse be conveyed to a judge assigned to a case, and the delinquent taxpayer who is the defendant does not deny it, the court should inquire whether the defendant wishes to be afforded an opportunity for tardy remittance of the overdue assessment and for its charter's reinstatement. If this opportunity be sought, the court should allow a reasonable time and reset the case for a day certain to conduct another inquiry into the charter's reinstatement. Should on the appointed day defendant's restored corporate status be shown, the judge could then proceed to trial. If the delinquent taxpayer's lawyer does not wish to request time for restoration of the client's charter, a judgment against the lapsed-corporate entity must be entered instanter.
15 Should the party challenged for tax delinquency be the plaintiff, the judge would be duty bound to deny it the right to prosecute the action. The party bringing a claim during its charter's suspension would lack capacity to maintain the suit.5 Upon such *1058plaintiff's request, the trial judge should defer the claim's imminent dismissal(without prejudice) by granting a continuance to a day certain for remittance of the delinquency. Absent plaintiff's request for time to cure the delinquency, it is incumbent on the judge to dismiss the cause instanter without prejudice.6 The post-dismissal remedy still available to the corporate plaintiff would be by refiling the suit within one year.7
16 Courts are neither the state government's tax collectors nor its punitive arm for revenue enforcement. Their constitutional mission in conforming judicial process to the standards prescribed by § 1212(c) does not allow for visiting a vendetta on recalcitrant corporations whose charter stands suspended.8 Onee H-830 had paid the overdue assessment, its charter stood reinstated retrospectively from the date the delinquency first arose. By relation back, it came to be restored from the day of its lapse.9 The trial judge should have initially allowed H-80 a limited time to remit the tas delinquency; onee that hurdle was removed, H-80 regained its right to defend against the claim earlier adjudicated in favor of the plaintiff.
T7 Courts must accord to a defendant whose charter has lapsed the same treatment as that which they are duty-bound to extend to a plaintiff found to be in like cireum-stances. Because the corporate defendant, who should have been, afforded a window of opportunity to pay the delinquent franchise tax, cured its charter's lapsed status within a reasonable time, there was error in failing to vacate the earlier judgment.

. The relevant terms of 68 0.S$.1991 § 1212(c) provide:
*1057* * * "Any corporation, association or organization whose right to do business shall be thus forfeited shall be denied the right to sue or defend in any court of this state, except in a suit to forfeit the charter of such corporation, association or organization. In any suit against such corporation, association or organization on a cause of action arising before such forfeiture, no affirmative relief shall be granted to such corporation, association or organization unless its right to do business in this state be reinstated as provided herein." * * * (emphasis added).

. The law's expected degree of awareness is defined in 25 0.5.1991 §§ 10-13. Matter of Estate of Pope, 1990 OK 125, ¶¶ 10-11, 808 P.2d 640, 646. The provisions of 25 0.5.1991 §§ 10-13 are: "Notice is either actual or constructive." 25 0.$.1991 § 10. "Actual notice consists in express information of a fact." 25 0.5.1991 § 11. "Constructive notice is notice imputed by the law to a person not having actual notice." 25 0.8.1991 § 12. "Every person who has actual notice of circumstances sufficient to put a prudent man upon inquiry as to a particular fact, and who omits to make such inquiry with reasonable diligence, is deemed to have constructive notice of the fact itself." 25 0.5.1991 § 13.

. A lawyer acts as personal agent of the client. Towne v. Hubbard, 2000 OK 30, ¶14, 3 P.3d 154, 160. Knowledge of the principal is imputed to the agent (and vice versa ), absent circumstances raising a presumption to the contrary. N.H. v. Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), 1999 OK 88, ¶22, 998 P.2d 592, 601.

. Due process requires that a deprivation of property be preceded by notice and opportunity for a hearing appropriate to the nature of a case. Blocker v. Martin, 1994 OK 17, ¶4, 868 P.2d 1316, 1316 (citing Mullane v. Central Hanover Bank & Trust Co., 339 U.S. 306, 313, 70 S.Ct. 652, 656, 94 L.Ed. 865 (1950)).

. Where in the past one's claim stood subject to taxation under the now-defunct intangible tax law, and plaintiff failed to establish proof of compliance with this jurisdictional prerequisite, *1058the trial court was without authority to enter judgment for recovery. It was directed to dismiss the cause without prejudice. Harris v. Conway, 1959 OK 24, ¶17, 343 P.2d 1069, 1078; Henry Building Co. v. Cowman, 1961 OK 75, ¶34, 363 P.2d 208, 215; Craft v. Bates, 1962 OK 122 ¶13, 372 P.2d 10, 13.

. Id.

. The pertinent terms of 12 0.8.1991 § 100 provide:
"If any action is commenced within due time, and a judgment thereon for the plaintiff is reversed, or if the plaintiff fail in such action otherwise than upon the merits, the plaintiff, or if he should die, and the cause of action survive, his representatives may commence a new action within one (1) year after the reversal or failure although the time limit for commencing the action shall have expired before the new action is filed."
An action that failed on grounds unrelated to the merits of the controversy falls within the ameliorative relief affordable under the terms of 12 0.S.1991 § 100. Matter of Estate of Speake, 1987 OK 61, 15-6, 743 P.2d 648, 650; Griesel v. Fabian, 1938 OK 589, 16, 84 P.2d 634, 635.

. Ex Parte Coffelt, 93 Okla. Cr. 343, 1951 OK CR 212, 228 P.2d 199, 201-203.

. RV. McGinnis Theatres & Pay TV., Inc. v. Video Independent Theatres, Inc., 262 F.Supp. 607, 613 (D.C.Okl.1967); Flour Mills of America, Inc. v. Pace, 75 F.R.D. 676, 679 (E.D.Okl.1977).