New York Car Oil Co. v. Richmond — 19 N.Y. Super. Ct. 213

Majority

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New York Car Oil Company, Plaintiffs and Respondents, v. Abner H. Richmond and Abraham Springsteen, Defendants and Appellants.

Headnote

1. The statute of New York, authorizing the formation of manufacturing corporations by the signing and filing a certificate in the office of the Clerk of the county and a duplicate in the office of the Secretary of State, provides that “ the copy of any certificate of incorporation filed in pursuance of the act, certified by the County Clerk or his deputy to be a true copy and of the whole of such certificate, shall be received in all Courts and places as presumptive legal evidence of the facts therein statedbut this provision does not necessarily exclude every other mode of proving the fact of incorporation.

2. When it is proved that no certificate can be found in the office of the County Clerk, so as to show that, if filed, it has since been lost or mislaid, so that the original cannot be found nor a copy be certified by the Clerk, it is competent to show by other evidence that in truth a copy was filed, and to produce in evidence a sworn copy of the original. The parties are not to be deprived of the benefits of their incorporation, or of the right to prove it, by the carelessness or misfortune of the Clerk.

3. A copy of the duplicate on file in the office of the Secretary of State, duly authenticated, is competent evidence of the contents of the certificate, and, on proof that a like certificate was filed with the County Clerk, then, of the fact of incorporation.

4. The rule requiring a party to produce the best evidence, only holds when such production is possible; and on its being shown that, for some reason not within the control of the party, the best evidence cannot be produced, secondary evidence may be given.

5. Where property is wrongfully taken from the possession of the owner, he can maintain an action to recover the possession from the wrongdoers without a previous demand.

6. Although it be conceded that, where property is taken from the possession of a judgment debtor, an officer taking the same by the levy of an execution against such debtor thereon, without notice that such debtor is not the owner, cannot be sued as for a wrongful taking and detention without a previous demand, it does not follow that the plaintiff in execution, actually directing such levy and taking, is entitled to any such demand, if the debtor so in possession is the mere agent of the owner, and has no leviable interest in the property.

7. The circumstance that a servant, in the manufactory of the plaintiff, employed to put in and take out goods, and watch the premises, and making occasional sales, when called upon by the constable and the creditor in an execution against another party, pointed out goods as the property of the

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execution debtor, will not defeat a recovery of the goods from the possession of the officer and creditor by the plaintiff, on due proof of his ownership.

8. To warrant the reversal of a judgment on the decision of a Eeferee, the weight of the evidence must be clearly against his finding. When the testimony is greatly conflicting, it would not be enough that the Court were of opinion that they should have come to a different conclusion upon the facts.

(Before Hoffman, Woodruff and Moncrief, J. J.)

Heard, January 10th;

decided, March 10th, 1860.

This action was brought to recover the possession of eight and one half casks of lubricating oil and ten bushels of coal, and one tank of oil, the property of the plaintiffs, of which it was alleged the defendants had become wrongfully possessed and which they wrongfully detained from the plaintiffs, who, as the complaint alleged, are a manufacturing corporation, organized under the Act of February, 17th, 1848, entitled “an act to authorize the formation of corporations for manufacturing, mining, mechanical or chemical purposes.”

- The answer of the appellant, Richmond, (who alone answered the complaint,) denied that the plaintiffs are a corporation; denied that the plaintiffs owned or had any interest in the property; denied the taking or detention of the plaintiffs’ goods mentioned in the complaint. And for further answer averred the recovery of a judgment, by the said appellant, against “The American Oil Manufacturing Company;” the issuing of an execution- thereon, its delivery to the defendant Springsteen, a constable ; the levy thereof upon property on the premises occupied by The American Oil Company, which property belonged to the last named Company, and was at the time in the custody of its agent, which property is partly described in the complaint.

On the trial before Danl. B. Taylor, Esq., to whom by consent the cause was referred, the plaintiffs offered in evidence a copy of a certificate of association filed in the office of the Secretary of State. The defendant objected to the evidence on the ground that it was not in compliance with the statute. That the certificate of the County Clerk of the fact that such certificate had been filed with him should be produced.

The plaintiffs then proved by the deputy clerk, from the County Clerk’s office, whose duty it was to enter such certificates

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in an index, that he had searched in that office and could not find any articles of association of the New York Car Oil Company on file or in the office of the County Clerk; and by two other deputies that the witness so examined had charge of the entering and filing of such certificates, and that one of the last named witnesses, according to the routine of business, received such papers and the fee for filing, thirteen cents, and delivered them to the first named witness the following morning, to be entered and filed in the proper place of deposit.

They then proved by two witnesses that the articles of association were executed in duplicate, one copy to be filed in the County Clerk’s office and one to be sent to the Secretary of State,. and one of those witnesses stated that there were three original copies, all executed, that he filed one about the last of September, 1857, in the office of the County Clerk, that he handed it to the person at the desk and paid him his charge twelve or thirteen cents, and sent another copy to the Secretary of State.

The same two witnesses and also a third testified, that in January, 1858, they saw those articles of association in the office of the County Clerk, and examined them there with a view to preparing the further certificate or report required by the statute; which must mean the report mentioned in the twelfth section of the act, stating the amount of capital paid in and other particulars there mentioned.

The copy so produced was shown to be a true copy of the articles so filed, and it was received in connection with the oral testimony as proof of the incorporation of the plaintiffs.

The taking of the goods, or so much thereof as was recovered, was then proved, viz.: Eight barrels of oil and three barrels of coal, and their value, but it was also proved that the person who had the care of the manufactory where the property was found at the time of the taking told the constable and the defendant Richmond, by whose direction the constable was acting, that the property belonged to the defendants in the execution which he held, viz.: to the American Oil Manufacturing Company.

There was great conflict of evidence on the question whether the property belonged to the American Oil Manufacturing Company or to the plaintiffs, and whether in fact there was any such Company as the New York Car Oil Company, the defendant in

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sisting that the whole claim of the plaintiffs was an artifice resorted to, to cover up and protect the property of the American Oil Company, by the pretense of having formed a new incorporation, and the further pretense that the oil in question was manufactured and owned by a new incorporation, when in truth the machinery, the lease of the factory and all of the property belonged to the former Company, which confessedly had held the lease, owned the machinery and carried on the business, and that this was done to avoid the payment of the debts of the American Oil Manufacturing Company.

Testimony was also given by the defendant, tending not only to contradict but to impeach the character of some of the plaintiffs’ witnesses.

The Referee found as matters of fact and law that the plaintiffs were duly incorporated. That the property in question belonged to them. That its value was $310, and that they had sustained damage by the taking to the amount of $30, and awarded the property to the plaintiffs with their said damages and costs of suit.

The defendants appealed to the General Term, and the exceptions taken on the trial raised the points considered in the opinion of the Court.

Mitchell Sanford, for the defendants (appellants).

I. The Referee erred in admitting a certificate purporting to be a certified copy of a certificate of the incorporation of plaintiffs, filed in the office of the Secretary of State. (Sess. Laws of 1848, p. 54.)

He also erred in admitting the testimony of John J. Reynolds, as to the filing of articles of incorporation in the office of the County Clerk of New York county; and because it was not the best evidence which the nature of the case admitted. (1 Penn. Small Cases, 149; 6 John., 19 ; 12 id., 221.)

II. The Referee erred in refusing to grant a nonsuit.

1. Under the statute of February 17, 1848, a corporation cannot sue or be sued unless they are duly organized under that statute.

2., The. plaintiffs were not so duly organized.

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3. Mere oral evidence of filing a certificate is not admissible.

4. The certified copy of the certificate from the office of the Secretary of State was not admissible. It should have shown upon its face that it was a duplicate of one filed in the County Clerk’s office. In a case like the present, the certificate filed in the Secretary’s office, cannot be held as an original.

HI. In an action of replevin it is necessary to prove a demand where the defendant is an innocent holder. The defendants in this action were innocent holders. (Pringle v. Phillips, 5 Sand., 157.)

1. Hazzard was the agent of the plaintiffs. He informed the defendant, Springsteen, that the goods taken belonged to the American Oil Manufacturing Company.

2. Under such circumstances the officer is bound to take the goods.

IV. The finding of the Referee was against evidence.

V. The plaintiffs did not show a title to the goods replevied.

VI. Under the pleadings it was necessary for the plaintiffs to prove themselves a Corporation. ( 8 Wend., 480 ; 2 Cow., 770 ; 14 Johns., 416 ; 8 id., 378.)

VII. The witness, Baldwin, stands impeached.

VIII. The plaintiffs were bound by the act of their agent, Hazzard. (Black. Com., v. 1, 429, [Christian’s ed.;] Com. on Contracts, v. 1, 238, 239, 240; 1st ed.)

E. W. Dodge, for the plaintiffs (respondents).

I. The defendant could not require the plaintiff to show itself duly organized as the New York Car Oil Company, as the answer does not affirmatively allege that the plaintiff was not a corporation. A simple denial by answer of an immaterial allegation of the complaint upon that point, it is contended, is not enough, under the statute, to entitle the defendant to dispute the plaintiffs’ corporate existence. (2 R. S., 4th ed., 698, § 3.)

II. Conceding that the answer of the defendant is sufficient to enable him to dispute the corporate existence of the plaintiff, then it is submitted that the making and filing the articles of association, in the office of the Clerk of the city and county of New York, and a duplicate thereof, in the office of the Secretary of State, were fully established by proof. The loss of the articles

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of association from the office of the County Clerk, was proved by the deputy clerk and two assistants in the office.

That the articles were filed in such office, was shown by John J. Reynolds, Daniel A. Baldwin, Silas M. Stilwell. The attempt to impeach the two last named witnesses, failed. Whether they were entitled to credit, was a question solely for the Referee. The duplicate filed in the office of the Secretary of State, was proved by an exemplified copy.

The Referee decided the articles of association to be correct in form and substance, and there is nothing in the case to show the contrary. (R. S., 4th ed., 12,15; §§ 19, 20; Sess. Laws of 1848, p. 54; Palmer v. Lawrence, 3 Sand. S. C. R., 161, 168.)

III. The plaintiff owned the oil and coal in dispute. Upon this subject, the evidence is clear and uncontradicted. If it be insisted there is any evidence to show ownership of this property in the American Oil Manufacturing Company, then the plaintiff claims that the conflict thus created, has been settled by the Referee, and his decision will not be disturbed upon an appeal.

The first exception upon which the appellant insists as a ground of reversal is, that “ the Referee erred in admitting the certificate purporting to be a certified copy of the incorporation of the plaintiffs, filed in the office of the Secretary of State.”

This exception may properly be considered in connection with another, viz.: that the Referee should have granted a nonsuit as moved for by the defendants, on the ground that the plaintiffs did not sufficiently prove that they were duly incorporated under the act under which they claimed such incorporation, viz.: The act of February 17th, 1848. (Laws of 1848, ch. 40.)

In so far as these exceptions proceed upon the form of the certificate given in evidence or the manner of its authentication or any supposed defect therein for want of compliance with the act, it must suffice to say that the appellant has not thought proper to embody the certificate of association or the copy produced on the trial, in the case or bill of exceptions settled and furnished to the Court on appeal. We are therefore unable to discover whether there are or are not any such defects therein, and must therefore assume that no such defects exist, and that

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the appellant does not rely upon any such defects as grounds of objection; nor were any defects in the form or authentication thereof suggested on the argument of this appeal.

And we have only to inquire whether under the circumstances proved at the trial the production of a certified copy from the office of the County Clerk could be dispensed with, and whether without such production the incorporation of the plaintiffs could be proved at all— and was sufficiently proved?

The act of 1848 requires that a certificate be filed in the office of the Clerk of the County, and a duplicate thereof in the office of the Secretary of State, and in the 9th section the act provides, that “ the copy of any certificate of incorporation filed in pursuance of the act, certified by the County Clerk or his Deputy to be a true copy, and of the whole of such certificate shall be received in all courts and places as presumptive, legal evidence of the facts therein stated.”

In the first place we do not regard this provision as necessarily excluding every other mode of proving the fact of incorporation, it provides one mode of proving the fact, a simple and in general an easy mode of doing so.

But if such certificate ought to be regarded as the best evidence, and therefore to be produced in the first instance, the rule requiring a party to produce the best evidence, only holds when such production is possible, and on its being shown that for some reason not within the control of the party the best evidence cannot be produced, secondary evidence may be given.

Here the plaintiffs proved by evidence satisfactory to the Referee, that the certificate was duly executed and was filed with the County Clerk and the fees paid. The party was no longer responsible for the safe keeping of the certificate, and if it was lost by the County Clerk after it had been left with him, the party could not be prejudiced thereby if he could prove the fact by other competent testimony. This the plaintiffs did by the best evidence that can be suggested. They proved the fact of filing—and they proved the contents of the paper filed by the production of a copy sworn to be a true copy of the certificate. From the necessity of the case, resulting from the loss of the paper filed, it was impossible that the County Clerk could certify the paper produced to be a copy and the plaintiffs were not

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responsible for the inability of the Clerk to certify, and should not be prejudiced by it. Any other doctrine would render the proof of the existence of any corporation so organized, dependent upon the care of the County Clerk in preserving papers filed, and in case of the accidental destruction of papers in that office, render such proof wholly impossible. No such doctrine can be admitted for a moment.

In the next place if the contents of the certificate could not be established by parol evidence or by a sworn copy, the duplicate produced from the office of the Secretary of State was the next highest evidence. It was proved that the certificate was executed in duplicate, and one was filed in the office of the Secretary of State. A copy of this was produced, and was not only so certified, but was also sworn to be a true copy. We have no hesitation in saying that even if there were no other provision by statute bearing on the subject, this proof of the plaintiffs’ incorporation was, after proof of the loss of the paper filed with the County Clerk, competent and sufficient.

Again, the certificate was filed in the office of the Secretary of State in compliance with the express provisions of the law, and by the general laws of the State, (1 R. S., 166, § 4,) it is enacted, that “ all copies of records and papers in the office of the Secretary of State, certified by him and authenticated by the seal of his office, shall in all cases be evidence equally and in like manner as the original.”

These views are sufficient; and we think they conclusively dispose of all objections founded on the idea that the plaintiffs were bound to prove their incorporation by producing either the original or a certified copy thereof from the County Clerk’s office. And as already suggested, the appellant, not having seen fit to insert the paper or papers in his case or exceptions, we have no means of examining the contents, or form, or authentication thereof, to determine whether they are or are not a compliance with the statutes. The finding of the Referee therefore must stand unimpeached by any thing appearing before us on this appeal.

2. The next objection urged upon our attention is, that the plaintiffs should have proved a demand of the property before action brought.

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Where property is levied upon and taken by a Sheriff or Constable under an execution, and it appears that when the levy was made the property was in the actual possession of the defendant in the execution, the Sheriff or Constable may be entitled to a demand of the property before action brought for such taking. It does not follow that the plaintiff in execution actually directing such levy and taking is entitled to any such demand, if in truth the party so in possession has no leviable interest in the property taken.

In this case Springsteen, the constable, made no defense; he suffered judgment by default. As to him, therefore, the question does not arise.

But the very question in whose possession was the property found, was one of the questions most severely contested on the trial. The same proof that bore upon this question, bore also on the inquiry whether the property belonged to the plaintiffs, or to the defendants in the execution, and it is, we think, entirely clear that if the proof did not establish that the property belonged to the defendants in the execution, then it did not prove that the property, when levied' upon, was in the possession of those defendants.

The Referee has found that it was the plaintiffs’ property, and unless that finding was against the evidence we must regard the same proof as establishing this point also. And if the defendant desired a specific finding upon the question, from whose possession was the property taken, he should have called the attention of the Referee to that subject, and procured such finding thereon. In the absence of such finding, we must take the fact to be favorable to the plaintiffs who have prevailed, since the evidence, would, we think, clearly warrant such a finding. (Fish v. Wood, 4 E. D. Smith, 327; Hardin v. Palmer, 2 id., 172; Viele v. The Troy and Boston Railroad Company, 20. N. Y. R. 184.

It is only when the property is lawfully in the possession of the defendant, that a previous demand before suit brought is necessary.

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3. It is claimed, that inasmuch as the person in charge of the manufactory pointed out the property as the property of the defendants in the execution, the plaintiffs are therefore concluded.

The mere circumstance that Hazzard, the person referred to, was in the employment of the defendants, wrought no such consequence. He was not the general agent of the defendants. It is testified that one Griffin was the plaintiffs’ agent, that Hazzard stayed there and watched the buildings; was employed to take in and put out goods, and to watch the premises, and sometimes sold small quantities of oil. He could not estop the plaintiffs by consenting to a levy in satisfaction of the debt of a third person any more than he could lawfully deliver the plaintiffs’ property to the defendant (the judgment creditor) in payment of his judgment.

Besides Hazzard testified that he requested the defendants not to take the property, and that while he remained there they did not remove it, but he locked the door and left, in order to find and consult the plaintiffs’ agent, and in his absence the defendants, by some means, opened the door and were engaged in removing the oil when he returned.

4. It only remains to consider whether the finding of the Referee that the property was the property of the plaintiffs, was so against the weight of the evidence that the judgment should be reversed upon that ground.

It must be conceded that there were many circumstances of suspicion in respect to the title of the plaintiffs, to the manufactory and the machinery therein. And there was proof that the machinery had been claimed and taken by the American Oil Manufacturing Company, (the judgment debtors,) by process in a replevin suit that was still pending. The proofs relating to the incorporation of the plaintiffs, the ignorance of Hazzard, one of the employees in the factory, that there was any other Company than the American Oil Manufacturing Company, and many other circumstances were justly calculated to create the suspicion that the last named Company having become embarrassed, the scheme of forming, or pretending to form, a new Company was devised by its managers in order to avoid the payment of the debts of the old Company, and yet obtain the possession and enjoyment of its property under a new name.

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But on the other hand there was positive proof that the new Company was incorporated. There was some evidence that the new Company purchased the machinery and lease of the factory, and the proof was uncontradicted that the oil in question was manufactured by the new Company.

In a great conflict of evidence tending to establish either claim, we cannot say that the Referee so erred in his conclusion that his finding should be set aside. We could not do this, even if we thought we should have formed the opposite conclusion.

An attempt was made to impeach the plaintiffs’ witnesses. On the other hand, their characters were supported by other testimony; the case depended in no slight degree upon the credibility of the witnesses whom the plaintiffs produced, and if their testimony was believed the case was clearly with the plaintiffs, and the oil was their property.

Under such circumstances, the finding of the Referee must be taken by us as conclusive. The judgment should therefore be affirmed.

Footnotes

1 See Grant v. Morse et al., 33 N. Y. R., 323.