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REPORT.

STATE OF NEW YORK:

ATTORNEY-GENERAL'S OFFICE,

ALBANY, December 31, 1900.

To the Legislature of the State of New York:

As required by the Executive Law, I respectfully submit herewith my report for the year 1900:

First. As to all moneys belonging to the State received during the year by way of costs, damages or otherwise.

Second. The title and subject-matter of all actions on appeal pending and undetermined and the condition thereof at the date of this report.

Third. What actions have been brought during the year for the recovery of real property claimed to be owned by the State and the condition of such actions at the date of this report.

Fourth. The title of every action brought by the Attorney-General during the year, against a corporation to vacate its charter or annul its existence and the condition thereof at the date of this report, with a brief statement of the cause for which the action. was brought, and the proceedings during the year in such actions previously brought.

Fifth. Copies of opinions rendered during the year, which are deemed to be of general public interest.

The information required under these heads is submitted in detail in the schedules hereto appended and marked, respectively, A, B, C, D and E.

LITIGATION.

Each year shows an increasing amount of litigation requiring the attention and action of this department. The Attorney-Gen

eral has been called upon to act for various State departments, officials and institutions, and these matters, in connection with the actions and proceedings relating to corporations and foreclosures and other actions, have greatly increased the work of this office. Each matter has received the most careful consideration, to the end that the interests of the State and of the individuals concerned might be fully recognized and protected.

There have been one hundred and eighteen proceedings for the voluntary dissolution of corporations; fifty-six actions for the sequestration of the property and assets of corporations; fourteen actions. to dissolve corporations and to annul their charters, and five miscellaneous corporation proceedings. As the statutes make the Attorney-General the supervisor of all dissolved corporations and of the receivers' accounts, each of these matters has received careful attention, so that the rights and interests of stockholders and creditors might be fully and amply protected. It is my aim to reduce this system of supervision to a strictly business basis, thus complying with the spirit, as well as the letter of the law.

There have been fifty-five actions for the foreclosure of mortgages and eight actions for partition of real estate, in which the People or the Attorney-General have been made defendants.

This department has been called upon to defend fifteen proceedings for writs of certiorari, and nine applications for writs of mandamus against the Secretary of State, Comptroller and other State officers.

One action has been commenced to uphold the State's rights to lands under navigable waters, and one action to recover escheated lands.

There have been twenty-two miscellaneous actions and proceedings, including one quo warranto proceeding and one proceeding commenced by me against the American Ice Company under the provisions of Chapter 690 of the Laws of 1899.

There have also been numerous applications to this department to commence actions; there were fifteen applications to commence

actions to dissolve corporations; four applications to institute quo warranto proceedings; two applications to procure permanent injunctions; three applications to compel an accounting by officers of corporations; two applications to begin actions to annul letterspatent and one application to declare a forfeiture of a public office.

This department has also been called upon to conduct investigations both at Albany and in the other parts of the State, of questions relating to and affecting various public officers and institutions.

Two cases of importance to the State at large have been decided during the past year, by the Supreme Court of the United States.

In the case of the People against Adirondack Railway Company, that Court decided that the lands comprised within the limits of the Forest Preserve could not be taken by that Company for its proposed railroad.

In the case of the Saranac Land and Timber Company v. Roberts, Comptroller, the same Court upholds the constitutionality of the statutes of this State, which declare that deeds from the Comptroller of lands in the Forest Preserve, sold for non-payment of taxes, shall, after having been recorded for two years, and in any action brought more than six months after the statute takes effect, be conclusive evidence that there was no irregularity in the assessment of taxes, and declares such a statute to be a statute of limitations.

In this same connection is the case of Meigs v. Roberts, in which the Court of Appeals held that a statute of limitations, if a reasonable time is given, will bar any right to vacate a Comptroller's deed, given upon a sale of lands for non-payment of taxes, even if the defects claimed are jurisdictional.

In the case of the People ex rel. The State Board of Charities against The New York Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, the Court of Appeals decided that the defendant was not subject to the supervision of the State Board of Charities, but that the scheme of State supervision of charitable institutions under

the Constitution and statutes, applied only to those corporations, public or private, maintained in whole or in part by the State, or some of its political subdivisions, through which charity is dispensed by public authority.

The same Court, in the case of People ex rel. Grannis & O'Connor v. Roberts, Comptroller, held that the statute directing the Superintendent of Public Works to pay contractors on the canal work, under the $9,000,000 fund, upon the certificate of the State Engineer stating the amount of work performed and its total value, imposed only administrative duties upon those officers, and did not deprive the Comptroller of the right of final audit.

Perhaps the most important matter of litigation in which this department has been interested is the proceeding instituted against the American Ice Company, for a violation of the "Anti-Trust" Law of 1899. Complaint had been made to me that the American Ice Company had formed and was fostering a monopoly in ice in the City of New York. On May 28, 1900, an order was granted by Justice Chase directing Robert A. Scott, Charles W. Morse and other witnesses to appear before Hon. Myer Nussbaum, the referee appointed and named in said order. On June 22nd, 1900, Charles W. Morse obtained from Justice Smythe an order to show cause why the order of Justice Chase should not be vacated. At the same time, Morse and the American Ice Company obtained separate alternative writs of prohibition against the referee and the Attorney-General, restraining further proceedings pending the determi nation of the alternative writs. These various matters were argued before Justice Chester on June 13th, 1900, who thereafter handed down a decision denying the motion to vacate the original order of Justice Chase, and also denying the application of Morse and the American Ice Company for peremptory writs of prohibition and vacating the alternative writs of prohibition already obtained. by them, and orders were thereupon duly entered on July 3, 1900. On the same day the American Ice Company and Charles W. Morse appealed from the orders of Justice Chester, and procured.

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