Roberts v. Pioneer Iron Works — 125 A.D. 207

Majority

p. 207

Jacob H. Roberts, Respondent, v. Pioneer Iron Works, Appellant.

Second Department,

March 11, 1908.

Headnote

Pleading — corporate character of plaintiff’s assignor—allegations sufficient.

A complaint which alleges that the plaintiffs assignor was “a Pennsylvania cor- • poration ” sufficiently states that the assignor was a foreign corporation and the State under the laws of which it was created.

Query, as to whether a natural person suing as assignee of a corporation is required to allege the corporate status of his assignor.

p. 208

Appeal by the defendant, the Pioneer Iron Works, from an order of the Supreme Court, made at the Nassau Special Term and entered in the office of the clerk of the county of Nassau on the 6th day of November, 1907, denying the defendant’s motion that the complaint be made more definite and certain.

Gustav Lange, Jr. [Ralph Barnett with him on the brief], for the appellant.

Francis H. Boland, for the respondent. -

The complaint alleges that “ the Lewis Foundry & Machine Com-, pany, a Pennsylvania corporation ”, manufactured and sold to the defendant certain steel rolls, and that it assigned its cause of action therefor to the plaintiff. The defendant’s motion that the complaint be made more definite and certain, so as to show whether the plaintiff’s assignor is a corporation, and, if so, whether domestic or foreign, and, if the latter, “the state, country or government” under whose laws it was created, also whether it is a “ stock, non-stock, or mixed” corporation, and if the first whether it be a “moneyed, transportation or business” corporation, was denied below. The motion was purely captious and vexatious. Section 1775 of the Code of Civil Procedure requires a plaintiff corporation to allege in the complaint that it is a corporation, whether it is domestic or foreign, and if the latter, the state or country under whose laws it was created. The plaintiff here is not a corporation. But if we should be willing to assume that it has to allege the status of its corporate assignor in the manner required by the said section, it has done so. The allegation that it is “ a Pennsylvania corporation ”, shows all that the said section required, i. <?., that it is a corporation, that it is foreign, and the state of its origin. It may well seem strange that our over-burdened courts are called upon by a learned bar to deal with frivolous questions like this.

The order is affirmed.

Woodward, Jenks, Hooker and High, JJ., concurred.

Order affirmed, with ten dollars costs and disbursements.