Supreme Court, May, 1912. [Vol. 77. CRANE, J. The title registration provision of the Real Property Law (art. 12) is not for the purpose of registering bad titles or by the judgment of the court giving to the plaintiff a title which he does not have. Its object is to establish by a judgment of court the fact once and for all that the plaintiff has title, so that thereafter the records need not be re-examined. It was never intended to be a means for curing defects or clearing title. There are other kinds of actions at law for this purpose. The apparent attitude, therefore, of the plaintiff's counsel in this case is hardly the correct one, for he assumes that judgment must go as by default upon the examiner's certificate unless some one appears, and that if the defendant does not answer he can only raise such questions as affect his individual interest. It is, however, the duty of the court to examine carefully the chain of title as set forth in the examiner's certificate and accompanying proofs, and, if it appears that the title is questionable, refuse its registration, leaving the parties to other action to cure the defects. Now the following defects or omissions appear from the record submitted: First. There is a break in the chain of title to the grantee, Andrew Nostrand, who conveyed to Ryder in 1841; no deed showing how Nostrand obtained title. This occurs so early in the record that it might be overlooked if the property had been actually occupied and in the physical possession of all subsequent record owners, or in fact had been in possession of the record owners for the past twenty years. The certificate, records and testimony are silent upon this point. As the property consists of marsh and beach land the presumption of possession cannot follow from mere record title which does not run back to the original grant or patent. Miller v. Long Island R. R. Co., 71 N. Y. 380. The only statement regarding possession is that of a present tenant, without mention of the landlord. view of the answer possession should have been established by oral proof. Second. Title is traced through a will into Annie E. Brandreth, but there is no record of conveyance from her to John Kinzie, who thereafter conveyed. I assume that the statement as to this deed is correct, but there is no proof as required by law. This is cured apparently by a In Misc.] Supreme Court, February, 1912. deed from Annie A. Brandreth to Charles Crabbe, the plaintiff. It is not contained in the examiner's certificate or any of the records submitted on the trial amounting to proof. The examiner submits an affidavit stating the fact, which is not a part of the chain of title or certificate. This I deem insufficient proof. Third. The deed conveying this property into the plaintiff would take the northerly line to the high water line of Barbadoes creek. The title sought to be registered would extend the property on the north to the bulkhead line, but there is no evidence whatever to show that the creek head line is at high water mark. It may have extended far out into the tide water of the creek, and, if so, the plaintiff shows no title to the land under water. There may be other minor defects, but for the purposes of decision these are sufficient, and I shall in consequence deny the application, without costs to anybody. Application denied. CHRISTOPHER J. O'CONNELL, Plaintiff, v. PRESS PUBLISHING COMPANY, a Domestic Corporation, Defendant.* (Supreme Court, Kings Special Term for Trials, February, 1912.) Libel and slander - words injuring business or occupation - pleading demurrer averring publication. In determining whether a newspaper article is libelous, its scope and object must be considered together and its language given a natural construction. Where at the time when the American Sugar Refining Company, its officers and employees, were charged with defrauding the government of the United States by fraudulently tampering with the scales upon which sugar, a dutiable commodity, was weighed for the purpose of determining the amount of import duty, there was published in defendant's newspaper in New York city, where the investigation of the charges was conducted, an article in which reference was made to weighing trickery and crooked scales and which contained a false statement that plaintiff was the inventor of a corset steel spring device which was shown by him Received too late for insertion in proper place. Affirmed in 151 App. Div. 926.- [REPORTER.] Supreme Court, February, 1912. [Vol. 77. to an official of the sugar company, which official referred him to a superintendent who was at the time of publication of said article on trial for like frauds against the government, said false statement fairly charges plaintiff with an offense against sections 5440, 5445 of the U. S. Revised Statutes and section 9 of the Act of Congress of June 10, 1890, and the complaint in an action for libel alleging the facts is good on demurrer. Such publication imputed to plaintiff a vicious act tending to diminish his respectability and impair his comfort by the attendant disgrace and contempt, and damage will be presumed. ACTION for libel; demurrer to complaint. Hersey Egginton (Henry F. Cochrane, of counsel), for plaintiff. Howard Taylor (Charles B. Brophy, of counsel), for defendant. STAPLETON, J. The action is for damages for libel. The issue arises upon a demurrer to the complaint. The complaint is designed to state two causes of action. The demurrer is interposed to both. The ground of the demurrer is that the complaint does not state facts sufficient to constitute a cause of action. The defendant is the publisher of The World and The Evening World, daily newspapers published in the city of New York, and the alleged libels were published in those newspapers. The articles, reproduced in the several causes of action, and alleged to be libelous, are as follows: "FRAUD INDICTMENT NEAR FOR OFFICER OF SUGAR TRUST. 6 "It developed yesterday that while Henry L. Stimson and some of his assistants have been introducing testimony Misc.] Supreme Court, February, 1912. against minor officials of the Sugar Trust on one floor of the Federal Building other assistant prosecutors have been endeavoring to indict men higher up' before the Federal Grand Jury on another floor of the building. "The World is in a position to state that evidence has been adduced before the Federal Grand Jury which will result in the indictment of an official of the Sugar Trust for the very frauds the perpetration of which now forms the basis of the criminal cases against minor officials, and that these indictments will be based, in part at least, on the evidence of one or more of the men now on trial. "On Wednesday Judge Martin of Vermont, who is trying the cases of Bendernagel, Spitzer and the four checkers, swore in the Federal Grand Jury for December. One of the first witnesses examined was John H. Thompson, a clerk at No. 117 Wall street, the office of the Sugar Trust, who had appeared before the petty jury hearing the cases again t Spitzer, Bendernagel and others. "INSTRUCTED BY TRUST OFFICIAL. Thompson, it is understood, made known the official of the Sugar Trust upon whose acquiescence he paid the bills. of the sugar shippers, which were based, not upon the Government weights, but upon the weights returned by the city weighers. He declared distinctly that he acted under instructions, and by his testimony an official of the trust is implicated in the frauds. "The December Grand Jury also examined a witness named O'Connell, who has not appeared in the criminal trial. It is said he testified to having invented the corset. steel spring device and to having shown it to an official of the trust, who referred him to Oliver Spitzer, dock superintendent. His testimony, it is understood, corroborated Thompson's to an extent. "That action against some official higher up than Bendernagel was not taken by the previous Grand Jury is said to have been due almost entirely to the action of Breczinzski, the former treasury agent, who, with Richard Parr, was on the Sugar Trust piers when the raid was made on the crooked Supreme Court, February, 1912. [Vol. 77. scales on Nov. 20, 1907. He has been at odds with Parr and appeared before the former Grand Jury voluntarily. "Breczinzski told the Grand Jury that Parr was not to be believed under any circumstances. Presented with a case based on Parr's testimony and seemingly convincing, the Grand Jury found itself with a record on which every allegation made by Parr was declared a falsehood and refused to return an indictment. "Judge Martin listened all yesterday afternoon to the arguments of counsel, defending Spitzer, Bendernagel and the others, in which a dismissal of the indictment was asked for but rendered no decision. It is expected he will deny the motion this morning. "TOLD TO SEE BENDERNAGEL.' "Prior to the argument the Government had rested after several witnesses had testified. One was Thomas D. Hyatt, a weigher, who had taken charge of the district including Havemeyer & Elder's refinery in October, 1897. He said: "Mr. Spitzer approached me and asked me to come up to the office and meet Mr. Bendernagel. I declined. I asked what they were going to charge as rent for the two offices which the weighers were to occupy. Spitzer said 'Oh, never mind that. We usually give that to the head weigher and a good deal more besides. You come to the office at the end of the month and Bendernagel will hand you an envelope. You need only shake hands with him, you don't even have to speak to him." "I declined again, and told him that I would rather wait a month or two until they could see how they liked my administration. Spitzer said: "We don't do any business with the assistant weighers; we do it all with the head weighers."" "Later, Hyatt said, he met Bendernagel. He did not, however, complete the usual term of a head weigher in that district. The usual term was one year. He served three months and eleven days. So it was whenever he was sent back there. His term was always a short one. "Hyatt swore that he had made written report of the occurrence to Surveyor of the Port Croft, now dead. No action |