Cristofaro v. Laurel Grove Memorial Park
Cristofaro v. Laurel Grove Memorial Park
Opinion of the Court
The opinion of the court was delivered by
Plaintiffs are monument makers in Paterson. They brought this action in the Chancery Division against the three defendants, incorporated associations operating cemeteries in Passaic and Bergen Counties, to enjoin certain practices which are alleged to be illegal and to interfere with the business pursuits and opportunities of the plaintiffs. The defendant George Washington Memorial Park moved to strike the complaint as not setting forth “facts upon which relief can be granted,” and, in the alternative, for a severance and for a more definite statement of plaintiffs’ claim. The trial court granted the motion first stated, on the ground that plaintiffs had no status to complain of the rules and regulations of the cemetery corporations.
The complaint is a vague and discursively stated recital, in ten paragraphs, which may be summarized as follows: Plaintiffs are in the business of fabricating and installing markers and monuments for graves and their market area includes the cemeteries here involved. “* * * the plaintiff has and can secure business from lot owners of said cemeteries.” The defendants “have prevented and prohibited” plaintiffs from getting business from lot owners in their cemeteries by “arbitrary and unreasonable rules and regulations which, in effect, preclude the plaintiff and other dealers” from installing memorials, monuments, etc. and have reserved
The activities of the defendants are charged to be ultra vires, unreasonable, illegal and against public policy as a menace to free enterprise. It is asserted that plaintiffs will be caused “extensive, substantial and irreparable loss” in their business, and they pray for an injunction against the enforcement of the rules and regulations, the engaging in ultra vires activities, and the “denying” or “interfering” with the “right of the plaintiffs” to erect and install memorials and monuments in the lands of the defendants.
By the liberal appraisal of the complaint required under our rules when there is an attack upon the sufficiency of a pleading, R. R. 4:8-6, Grobart v. Grobart, 5 N. J. 161, 167 (1950); Mianulli v. Gunagan, 32 N. J. Super. 212 (App. Div. 1954); Puccio v. Cuthbertson, 21 N. J. Super. 544, 546 (App. Div. 1952); Kurtz v. Oremland, 24 N. J. Super. 235 (Ch. Div. 1952), we discern an attempt by the plaintiffs to bring their grievance within two theories: (a) the activities of defendants are ultra vires and otherwise contrary to public policy, to plaintiffs’ incidental commercial disadvantage; (b) wrongful interference by defendants with
There are intimations in the opinion of the trial court and in the argument of the respondent that the complaint is defective for failure of particulars of the wrongs asserted, and much could be said in support of the position that defendants are hardly apprised by the complaint as to precisely what they are charged with. See Untermann v. Untermann, 19 N. J. 507, 518 (1955); Brown v. Brown, 2 N. J. 252, 255 (1949); Grobart v. Society for Establishing Useful Manufactures, 2 N. J. 136, 150, 151, 152 (1949); 2 Moore’s Federal Practice (2d ed. 1948), § 8.13, pp. 1649-1655. We have concluded, however, that it is fairly to be determined, upon the basis of what is expressed in the complaint and such reasonable intendment in support of the allegations set forth as must be made under the rule that “all pleadings shall be so construed as to do substantial justice,” R. R. 4:8—6; Jersey City v. Hague, 18 N. J. 584, 602 (1955), that in a limited sense a claim upon which relief can be granted is stated in the complaint.
So far as the complaint is cast in the guise of an effort to enforce statutory or other limitations upon the exercise of the corporate powers of the defendants or to procure a judicial determination of the legality of or reasonableness of their rules and regulations, as such, we are in agreement with the decision of the trial court that plaintiffs have no standing to complain. Davisson v. Mt. Moriah Cemetery Ass’n, 87 Mont. 459, 288 P. 612, 81 A. L. R. 1419 (Sup. Ct. 1930); Annotation 81 A. L. R. 1422; Talman v. Rochester Lodge No. 47, I. O. O. F., 88 Ind. App. 507, 164 N. E. 718 (Ct. App. 1929); but see Tonella v. Fishkill Rural Cemetery, 135 Misc. 81, 236 N. Y. S. 663 (Sup. Ct. 1929), affirmed 229 App. Div. 732, 241 N. Y. S. 851 (App. Div. 1930), affirmed 255 N. Y. 617, 175 N. E. 338 (Ct. App. 1931); Anheuser v. West Lawn Cemetery Co., 230 Wis. 262, 282 N. W. 577 (Sup. Ct. 1938). The majority view is that the reasonableness of a cemetery rule or regulation can be questioned only by
Normally the regularity of the exercise of a corporate franchise will be inquired into only at the instance of the Attorney-General. State v. Paterson & Hamburg Turnpike Co., 21 N. J. L. 9 (Sup. Ct. 1847); State ex rel. Stevenson v. Godwinville & Paterson Macadamized Road Co., 7 N. J. L. J. 82 (Sup. Ct. 1884); see Holloway v. Dickinson, 69 N. J. L. 72, 73 (Sup. Ct. 1903). While courts of equity have in some cases restrained the gross abuse of corporate powers where special injury to complaining individuals was
Erom the narrow perspective of the supposed status of the plaintiffs as suitors in competition with the defendant corporations, alleged to be acting ultra vires, the preferable, and, we think, the predominant view in this State and elsewhere would preclude the bringing of this action. But that conclusion does not settle the matter before us. The complaint has broader implications.
First, it is to be noted that on such a motion as this — one which, if successful, means sudden death to the action — the court searches the complaint in depth and with liberality to ascertain whether the fundament of a cause of action may be gleaned even from an obscure statement of claim, opportunity being given to amend if necessary. Grobart v. Grobart, supra (5 N. J., at page 167); Jersey City v. Hague, supra (18 N. J., at page 602); Cabakov v. Thatcher, 27 N. J. Super. 404, 408 (App. Div. 1953); Cohen v. Miller, 5 N. J. Super. 451 (Ch. Div. 1949). On this motion plaintiffs are entitled to the benefit of every favorable inference of fact. Independent Dairy Workers Union of Hightstown v. Milk Drivers and Dairy Fmployees Local No. 680, 23 N. J. 85 (1956). Plaintiffs argue that they make a good complaint for injunction against the wrongful and continuing interference by defendants with their business opportunities, within a rule increasingly familiar to our jurisprudence. Louis Kamm, Inc., v. Flink, 113 N. J. L. 582 (E. & A. 1934); Mayflower Industries v. Thor Corp., 9 N. J. 605 (1952), affirming, on the opinion in the Chancery Division, 15 N. J. Super. 139 (Ch. Div. 1951) and 15 N. J. Super. 337 (Ch. Div. 1951); Prosser, Law of Torts (2d ed. 1955), § 107, p. 745. To the authorities exemplifying the doctrine, cited in Longo v. Reilly, 35 N. J. Super. 405, 411, 412 (App. Div. 1955), add Kurtz v. Oremland, supra, and Joseph v. Passaic Hospital Ass'n, 38 N. J. Super. 284, 291 (App. Div. 1955), certification
We are constrained to look into the question as to whether these principles are applicable to the facts at hand, notwithstanding we have rejected the approach from the standpoint of a competitor complaining of the ultra vires acts of a corporation. Slight differences in factual emphasis or perspective sometimes cause a given situational complex to assume a different, even antithetical, jural outlook. Cf. O’Donnell v. Asplundh Tree Expert Co., 13 N. J. 319, 329 (1953). So, too, here. As will be seen, this controversy is not readily classifiable as one between business competitors in the ordinary sense. Moreover, looking at the case as one to enjoin a business tort, and in considering whether defendants have justification as a defense, we shall find that every facet of the right or wrong of their activities must be weighed. There is no reason in principle why the inquiry should not include the matter of ultra vires or abuse of legal powers.
To argue, in reference to the “interference” aspect of the projected cause of action, that plaintiffs have no status to sue, is to beg the question. Status of the plaintiff is integral to this kind of legal grievance. The questions here are, rather, whether: (a) plaintiffs’ economic losses from the practices in question at defendants’ cemeteries are reasonably probable and proximately result therefrom; and (b) whether such practices are to be classified as wrongful and therefore not privileged. If either inquiry is answered in the negative, it conduces to clearer thinking to postulate the result in
And so to the merits. One phase of the complaint, at least, appears to commend itself at once as within the scope of the rule under discussion. It is the allegation, albeit by indirection, in paragraph 10 of the complaint, that defendants impose such unreasonable, excessive and confiscatory charges and fees “upon the plaintiffs” as to amount to a prohibition of their right to deal with lot owners. Reading this assertion in the light of the complaint as a whole, and having in mind that plaintiffs will have to file a more definite statement of their claim, we find at least-adumbrated a charge that the defendants, in order to monopolize for their own profit all the monument business in their cemeteries, are taking advantage of what plaintiffs call the lot owners’ “captive” relationship with them to prevent free and competitive access of plaintiffs to the lot owners, by use of the means stated. Since, in this aspect, defendants’ acts are charged to be visited directly upon the plaintiffs, there is no question as to the proximity between asserted wrongs and injuries. Eor purposes of the motion to dismiss, it is to be assumed (although plaintiffs must be more specific when they amend) that the excessive fees and charges were levied in connection with actual contracts with lot owners. We have concluded that if what plaintiffs say is true the injury is manifest and justification on the part of defendants absent. We have “the intentional doing of a wrongful act without justification or excuse,” Louis Schlesinger Co. v. Rice, 4 N. J. 169, 181 (1950), and, consequently, a cause of action.
The action is concededly one of novel impression in this State, but in this field, which Dean Green has called the “appropriation of relational interests,” “the possible situations are infinite and there is no formula, either simple or complex, through which the problems can all be adequately poised for judgment.” Green, “Relational Interests,” 30
“This * * ::: involves society’s interest in affording to the individual a fair opportunity to conduct his legitimate business affairs without interruption from others except in so far as such interferences are sanctioned by the ‘rules of the game’ * *
The “rules of the game” afford the defendants no privilege to assess monument makers with excessive charges and costs as a condition of installing monuments or memorials where the purpose or effect is, as charged, to force lot owners to deal only with defendants in purchasing and installing such memorials and thereby prevent the fruition of plaintiffs’ normal business expectancies. A public cemetery is a public charitable trust and its operation for private profit offends public policy. Atlas Fence Co. v. West Ridgelawn Cemetery, 110 N. J. Eq. 580 (E. & A. 1932); Moore v. Fairview Mausoleum Co., 39 N. J. Super. 309, 314 (App. Div. 1956). This holds even where the cemetery is operated by private interests. Parker v. Fidelity Union Trust Co., 2 N. J. Super. 362, 388, 389 (Ch. Div. 1944). We do not find it necessary, for disposition of this appeal, to determine whether the corporate powers of defendants extend to the sale of memorials to their lot owners. The power is not expressed in the statute. If they have the power, however, it is by implication, and it exists only to the extent that it is reasonably incidental to their general statutory objective of “procuring and holding lands to be used exclusively for a cemetery or a place for the burial of the dead,” R. S. 8 :1 — 1, or consequential of the right to promulgate reasonable rules and
Other phases of the charge of unlawful interference by defendants with plaintiffs’ business opportunities, however, lead us to more controversial areas. The impact of the other indicated activities upon plaintiffs’ business prospects is less direct and the range of justification is consequently broader. 1 Harper and James, ubi cit., supra. In respect to prospective monument business with lot owners, which plaintiffs charge they will lose because of defendants’ “unreasonable rules and regulations” or unreasonable enforcement of rules and regulations, allegedly designed, in either case, to preclude lot owners from dealing with plaintiffs in order to vest a monopoly in the monument business in these cemeteries in the defendant corporations, there would appear to be a substantial basis for the argument that plaintiffs’ expectancies, on the basis of the contents of the complaint, constitute such a “probable expectancy” as our Court of Chancery long ago categorized for increasing protection from “undue interference” as “our system of jurisprudence is evolved to meet the growing wants of an increasingly complex social order, * * Jersey City Printing Co. v. Cassidy, 63 N. J. Eq.
There is considerable legal controversy as to the extent to which cemetery organizations impliedly possess the power, under rules or regulations inspired by considerations, for example, of public health, good order or aesthetics, to comped lot owners to deal solely with them in purchasing goods and services accessorial to interments. Gases generally contra are: Chariton Cemetery Co. v. Chariton Granite Works, 197 Iowa 403, 197 N. W. 457, 32 A. L. R. 1402 (Sup. Ct. 1924); Scott v. Lakewood Cemetery Association, 167 Minn. 223, 208 N. W. 811, 47 A. L. R. 64 (Sup. Ct. 1926); Ignatowski v. St. Mary's Polish Catholic Cemetery Co., 174 Pa. Super. 52, 98 A. 2d 234 (Super. Ct. 1953); Roselawn Memorial Park v. De Wall, 11 Ill. App. 2d 66, 136 N. E. 2d 702 (App. Ct. 1956); People ex rel. v. Bloomington Cemetery Ass'n, 353 Ill. 534, 187 N. E. 455 (Sup. Ct. 1933); Johnson v. Cedar Memorial Park Cemetery Ass’n, 229 Iowa 749, 295 N. W. 136 (Sup. Ct. 1940). For the other point of view see Gasser v. Crown Hill Cemetery Ass’n, 103 Colo. 175, 84 P. 2d 67 (Sup. Ct. 1938); Campbell v. Neshannock Presbyterian Church, 153 Pa. Super. 246, 33 A. 2d 33 (Super. Ct. 1943); Orlowski v. St. Stanislaus Roman Catholic Church Soc., 161 Misc. 480, 292 N. Y. S. 333 (Sup. Ct. 1936). There is as yet no law in this State on the point beyond the indication that rules of the cemetery as to such matters must be reasonable. See Donohue v. Fitzsimmons, supra (95 N. J. Eq., at page 128).
These aspects of the complaint present grave implications of both statutory and social policy, not readily assessable with file meagre materials in the complaint as it stands. We deem it appropriate that conclusions as to the statement or existence of a cause of action in favor of plaintiffs in
The judgment is modified so as to deny the motion to dismiss the complaint and to direct the plaintiffs to file an amended complaint more specifically stating the particulars of their claim, in conformity with the rules of practice, within 15 days of the entry of the mandate. No costs.
Reference
- Full Case Name
- LOUIS DI CRISTOFARO, NICHOLAS CHRISTOPHER AND LOUIS DI CRISTOFARO, Jr., PARTNERS, TRADING AS PATERSON MONUMENT CO. v. LAUREL GROVE MEMORIAL PARK, CRESTHAVEN MEMORIAL PARK, INC., AND GEORGE WASHINGTON MEMORIAL PARK, DEFENDANT-RESPONDENT
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