Title GCN, General Construction

§ 37. Person. The term person includes a corporation and a joint-stock association. When used to designate a party whose property may be the subject of any offense, the term person also includes the state, or any other state, government or country which may lawfully own property…

§ 37-a. Personal injury. "Personal injury" includes libel, slander and malicious prosecution; also an assault, battery, false imprisonment, or other actionable injury to the person either of the plaintiff, or of another.

§ 37-b. Population. 1. The term population when used in relation to this state, or a municipality or other subdivision thereof, or a portion of such a municipality or subdivision, shall, unless otherwise provided in relation to such use, mean population as shown by the latest fe…

§ 38. Property. The term property includes real and personal property.

§ 39. Property, personal. The term personal property includes chattels, money, things in action, and all written instruments themselves, as distinguished from the rights or interests to which they relate, by which any right, interest, lien or incumbrance in, to or upon property,…

§ 40. Property, real. The term real property includes real estate, lands, tenements and hereditaments, corporeal and incorporeal.

§ 41. Quorum and majority. Whenever three or more public officers are given any power or authority, or three or more persons are charged with any public duty to be performed or exercised by them jointly or as a board or similar body, a majority of the whole number of such person…

§ 41-a. Recital in record of meeting as evidence. A recital in any order, resolution or other record of any proceeding of a meeting referred to in section forty-one of this chapter that such meeting had been held or adjourned as provided in said section, or that it had been held…

§ 42. Register of county. Any act done in pursuance of law by the register of a county shall be deemed to be a compliance with any provision of law authorizing or requiring such act to be done by the county clerk of such county, and any instrument or writing filed, entered or re…

§ 43. Seal of court, public officer or corporation. A seal of a court, public officer or corporation may be impressed directly upon the instrument or writing to be sealed, or upon wafer, wax or other adhesive substance affixed thereto, or upon paper, or other similar substance a…

§ 44. Seal, private. The private seal of a person, other than a corporation, to any instrument or writing shall consist of a wafer, wax or other similar adhesive substance affixed thereto, or of paper or other similar substance affixed thereto, by mucilage or other adhesive subs…

§ 44-a. Seal on written instrument. Except as otherwise expressly provided by statute, the presence or absence of a seal upon a written instrument executed after August thirty-first, nineteen hundred forty-one shall be without legal effect.

§ 45. Seal, private as corporate seal. An instrument or writing duly executed, in the corporate name of a corporation, which shall not have adopted a corporate seal, by the proper officers of the corporation under their private seals, shall be deemed to have been executed under …

§ 46. Signature. The term signature includes any memorandum, mark or sign, written, printed, stamped, photographed, engraved or otherwise placed upon any instrument or writing with intent to execute or authenticate such instrument or writing.

§ 47. State. The term state, when used generally to include every state of the United States, includes also every territory of the United States and the District of Columbia.

§ 47-a. Superintendent of schools. The term "superintendent of schools" shall mean the chief school officer of a school district other than the city school district of the city of New York or a community school district therein. Except for purposes of section one thousand seven …

§ 48. Tense, present. Words in the present tense include the future.

§ 49. Territory. The term territory when used generally to include every territory of the United States, includes also the District of Columbia.

§ 50. Time, computation. Time shall continue to be computed in this state according to the Gregorian or new style. The first day of each year after the year seventeen hundred and fifty-two is the first day of January, according to such style.

§ 51. Time, night. Night time includes the time from sunset to sunrise.

§ 52. Time, standard. 1. The standard time throughout this state is that of the seventy-fifth meridian of longitude west from Greenwich, except as hereinafter provided, and all courts and public officers, and legal and official proceedings, shall be regulated thereby. 2. At two …

§ 53. Time, use of standard. Any act required by or in pursuance of law to be performed at or within a prescribed time, shall be performed according to the standard time.

§ 53-a. Trial juror; trial jury. The terms "trial juror" and "trial jury", are respectively equivalent to the terms "petit juror", and "petit jury", as used in the constitution and laws of the state.

§ 54. Village. The term village means an incorporated village.

§ 55. Women. The term women includes girls.

§ 56. Writing and written. The terms writing and written include every legible representation of letters upon a material substance, except when applied to the signature of an instrument.

§ 57. Year, common and leap. For the purpose of computing and reckoning the days of the year in the same regular course in the future, every year, the number of which in the Christian era is a multiple of four, is a bissextile or leap year consisting of three hundred and sixty-s…

§ 58. Year in statute, contract and public or private instrument. The term year in a statute, contract, or any public or private instrument, means three hundred and sixty-five days, but the added day of a leap year and the day immediately preceding shall for the purpose of such …

§ 59. Bastard; illegitimate child. The term "bastard" or "illegitimate child" in a statute means a child born out of wedlock. Hereafter in any local law, ordinance or resolution or in any public or judicial proceeding or in any process, notice, order, decree, judgment, record or…

§ 60. Newspapers. a. In any case in which notice of any fact is required by law to be published or advertised in a newspaper, the term "newspaper" shall mean a paper of general circulation which is printed and distributed ordinarily not less frequently than once a week, and has …

§ 61. Date for determining last completed assessment rolls. In computing the amount which may be raised by tax on real estate by a county, city, village or school district within the limitation prescribed by article eight of the constitution, the determinations as to the last co…

§ 62. Size of type. Whenever a requirement of law relating to size of type is stated in point size, the type size requirement shall be deemed met if the x-height of the type is a minimum of forty-five percent of the specified point size. Each point shall be measured as .351 mill…

§ 65. Classification of corporations. a. A corporation shall be either, 1. A public corporation, 2. A corporation formed other than for profit, or 3. A corporation formed for profit. b. A public corporation shall be either, 1. A municipal corporation, 2. A district corporation, …

§ 66. Definitions. 1. A "public corporation" includes a municipal\ncorporation, a district corporation, or a public benefit corporation.\n 2. A "municipal corporation" includes a county, city, town, village\nand school district.\n 3. A "district corporation" includes any territo…

§ 67. Names of corporation laws. The cooperative corporations law, religious corporations law and transportation corporations law may be cited or referred to as, respectively, the cooperative corporation law, religious corporation law and transportation corporation law.

§ 70. Statutes of England and Great Britain inoperative in this state. A statute of England or Great Britain shall not be deemed to have had any force or effect in this state since May first, seventeen hundred and eighty-eight.

§ 71. Acts of the legislature of the colony of New York inoperative. Acts of the legislature of the colony of New York shall not be deemed to have had any force or effect in this state since December twenty-ninth, eighteen hundred and twenty-eight.

§ 72. Resolutions of the congress of the colony and the convention of New York inoperative. The resolutions of the congress of the colony of New York and of the convention of the state of New York, shall not be deemed to be the laws of this state hereafter.

§ 80. References to repealed provisions. If any provision of a law be repealed and, in substance, re-enacted, a reference in any law to such repealed provision shall be deemed a reference to such re-enacted provision.

§ 81. Titles and head notes. If the title of any article or other division of a statute, or the head note of a section shall be amended or repealed in the body of the statute, or if a new article or other division having a title, or a new section having a new head note be added …

§ 90. Effect of the repeal of a repealing statute. The repeal hereafter or by this chapter of any provision of a statute, which repeals any provision of a prior statute, does not revive such prior provision.

§ 91. Effect of the repeal of a statute upon amendments thereof. The repeal by the Consolidated Laws of a statute includes a statute amendatory of the statute repealed.

§ 92. Effect of the repeal of an amending statute. The repeal hereafter or by this chapter of any provision of a statute, which amends a provision of a prior statute, leaves such prior provision in force unless the amendatory statute be a substantial re-enactment of the statute …

§ 93. Effect of repealing statute upon existing rights. The repeal of a statute or part thereof shall not affect or impair any act done, offense committed or right accruing, accrued or acquired, or liability, penalty, forfeiture or punishment incurred prior to the time such repe…

§ 94. Effect of repealing statute upon pending actions and proceedings. Unless otherwise specially provided by law, all actions and proceedings, civil or criminal, commenced under or by virtue of any provision of a statute so repealed, and pending immediately prior to the taking…

§ 95. Effect of the repeal of a statute by another statute substantially re-enacting the former. The provisions of a law repealing a prior law, which are substantial re-enactments of provisions of the prior law, shall be construed as a continuation of such provisions of such pri…

§ 96. Effect of hyphen in schedule of repeals. When two numbers in a schedule of repeals of the consolidated laws are connected by a hyphen both such numbers are included as well as all intermediate numbers.