Case ID: ga_160/html/0460-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "\n      Hild, J.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

McLamb v. Jackson et al.
    
    No. 4582.
    June 10, 1925.
    Injunction. Before Judge Meldrim. Chatham superior court. September 24, 1924.
    John Jackson and nine other employees of the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad Company filed their equitable petition in Chatham superior court against S. McLamb, trading as Liberty Purchasing Company, praying that certain alleged contracts purporting to be assignments of their wages as such employees be declared null and void upon the ground that the same were used as a cloak for charging the petitioners usury and as a contrivance or device for the collection of interest at rates higher than those authorized by law. McLamb filed his demurrers; and subsequently the petition was amended by alleging the perpetration of fraud by the defendant in the procurement of the assignments of the wages. On August 20, 1924, three of the plaintiffs, Calvin Smith, Albert Folds, and Will Darby, filed an amendment to the petition, alleging that on August 6, 1924, McLamb filed in the superior court of Fulton County three separate suits against each of the three plaintiffs, and in each suit their employer, Atlantic Coast Line Eailroad Co., was joined as a defendant; wherein McLamb was undertaking to enforce alleged rights under the contracts which are involved in the present suit, by requiring the employer to pay to McLamb the amounts claimed to be due under the assignments of wages described in the petition in this case. It was prayed that the three suits in Fulton superior court be enjoined, etc. The Atlantic Coast Line Eailroad Co. filed its petition to intervene, praying that the three suits be restrained and enjoined. On August 25, 1924, an amendment to the petition was filed, and on the same date the defendant filed general and special demurrers to the petition as amended, and also to the intervention. One ground of the special demurrer was that the petition is multifarious, in that the alleged, claims of each of the petitioners are separate and distinct, based upon individual transactions that are unrelated. On September 23, 1924, the court rendered an opinion overruling the demurrers and granting a temporary injunction. To this order McLamb excepted.
   Hild, J.

1. On the question of misjoinder of parties this ease is controlled by the principle ruled in the cases of Ferrell v. Greenway, 157 Ga. 535 (122 S. E. 198), and Atlanta Finance Co. v. Fulwiler, 158 Ga. 859 (124 S. E. 689), where this court held that the petitions joined in one action separate and distinct causes of action against separate and distinct parties between whom there was no unity or privity of interest, and were subject to the special demurrers filed thereto on the ground of misjoinder of parties.

2. The court erred in granting the interlocutory injunction, for the reason ■ that the special demurrer as to misjoinder of parties should have been sustained. Civil Code (1910), § 5631.

Judgment reversed.

All the Justices concur, except Gilbert, J., absent for providential cause.

B. B. Jaclcson, T. L. Lanford, and H. P. Cobb, for plaintiff in error.

F. B. Youngblood, F. A. Cohen, and Lawrence & Abrahams, contra.