Case ID: mo_12/html/0430-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Judge Birch", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

CORL vs. RIGGS, LEVERING & DOUGHTY.
    1. If A for a valuable consideration makes a promise to B for the benefit of C, C may maintain an action in his own name on such promise.
    2. In older to constitute a former judgment a bar to another suit,it should appear that both suits are for the same cause of action and between the same parties.
    APPEAL FROM ST. LOUIS COURT OF COMMON PLEAS.
    
    Leslie & Lord, for appellant.
    
      1st. The court below erred in deciding that the former suit between Doughty, one of the plaintiffs below, and Corl, for the same identical demand, for which this suit was brought* was not a bar to this action.
    2d. The court, upon the facta in this case, erred in deciding that Riggs, Levering &. Doughty, could maintain an action against Corl, on the agreement, as stated in the agreed case, as made between Scoville & Johnson & Corl.
    It is a rule of law, that a man shall not be twice vexed for one and the same cause.
    Broom’s legal maxims 135.—« For you shall not bring the same cause of action twice to a final determination.”
    Kitchen & others vs. Campbell 3 Wil. 308—t{ what is meant by the same cause of action is, wben the same evidence will support both actions.”
    
      “ When a party has once litigated, or what is the same thing, had an opportunity of litigating, he cannot bring a second action.” 12 Vermont 117; 1 McLean 450; 2 John 210; 16 Johnson, 136.
    The judgment for the defendant in the court below, in the suit with Doughty, was conclusive. Suppose the judgment had been for Doughty, could Riggs, Levering § Doughty, have Sued again ? ,
    They cannot say that they were strangers to the suit.
    There is no privity of contract between the parties. Corl’s agreement with Johnson & Scoville, and they alone can enforce it.
    F. A. Dick, for appellees.
    1st, One suit in order to be a bar to another, must be between the same parties; and these two suits are not between the same parties. 1 Greenleaf’s Ev. 672 sec. 522; 1 Phil. Ev. 230 gf note to same in 2nd Phil. Bv. 572 (note 438.) Baring et al. vs. Fannin?, 1 Paine C. C. Rep. 549 ; Hutchins vs. Fitch, 4 J. R. 222; BoardmaD vs. Reed’s Lessee, 6 Peters, 328 ; 1 Phil. Ev. 222 ; Edition of 1820.
    2nd. The same cause of action,—and there is not the same cause of action in these two suits. Kraft’s admrs. vs. Hurtz Sf Jungb, 11 Mo. Rep. 109. New England Bank vs. Lewis, 8 Pick .113 ; 3 Phil. Ev. 835 (n. 589.)
    3rd. The former trial should be upon the merits, 1 Greenleaf’s Ev. 677 sec, 530 ; 5 J. R, 442 ; 3 Phil. Ev. 818 n. 571 ; to p. 327; 1 Phil. Ev. 327.—Hughes Vs. Blake, 1 Mason 515, 519.
   Judge Birch

delivered the opinion of the court.

This was an agreed case,—the facts having been set down in writing, for the judgment of the court of Common Pleas, in these words;

“It is agreed by and between the parties to this suit, as follows, to wit, that Scoville and Johnson were keepers of a dram shop or coffee house in the city of St. Louis, contracted a debt with the plaintiffs for liquors sold to them amounting to the sum of seventy dollars, that after said debt was contracted the defendant purchased out the interest of said Scoville & Johnson in said coffee house, and agreed with them to pay certain debts, owing by them, to sundry persons, whose names were set down on the back, or attached to the bill of sale so made by the said Scoville & Johnson to the defendant, and that the debt due to the plaintiffs, was of this number so set down. That heretofore a suit waS brought by Jiú'nes W. Doughty, one of the plaintiffs in bis own nam'ej ■against Corl the above defendant for the same identical demand or goods sold, that this suit is brought to recover. That a trial in such case s'O commenced by Doughty vs. Coi'l was had in this court at the last term thereof, which resulted upon the case being submitted to the jury, in a verdict for the áefen'dant, Córl. After the verdict and judgment in the 'said case between Doughty & Corl, the plaintiffs commenced this suit, ■and the question to be submitted to this court upon the foregoing statement of facts, is-, whether the verdict and judgment in the Case of ’Doughty vs. Cotí is a bar to the present action.”

Judgment having been rendered for the plaintiff’s belowj the cause is brought hére by appeal, and presents for our consideration, two questions,—one raised by the agreement, and the other presented in the motion for a new trial. The latter is, that as the promise Was not made ‘directly to the plaintiffs, upon a consideration moving from them*' they bad no cause of action. In reference to this-, it is but nee'essary to re*apply the principle Which was recognized by this court in the case of ■Robbins vs. Ayres, to which we have referred in previous decisions rendered at the present term. It will scarce be pretended that tlie purchase of interest in a coffee house did not constitute “ a valuable Consideration”—and, in such a case, there was no necessity that it should be “ moving” from a creditor of a vendor, who was thereby to be paid.

As to the other point, whilst admitting the general force of the reasoning employed by thé ‘counsel for the defendant, in suppbrt of the maxim that “a man shall not be íwicé vexed for one and the saihe cause,” we think it inapplicable in a case like the present. Doughty had no '“cause** or right of action-, in his own name, againát the defendant it was, in fact, becaüse the same parties werenot plaintiffs in the first suit, that one of them had to pay the costs of it, and join in the present one. In the legal conclusion, therefore, that the present plaintiffs ought not to be barred in this suit, by reason of the miscarriage of the other, we are not unsupported by authority,—the case of Chapman vs. Chapman, 1 Mum. 398, referred to, and reiterated in Barring vs. Fanning, 1 Paine 656, being so nearly analogous to the present one, that We need but copy and adopt the language of the judge who delivered the latter opinion : “It was there laid down that a record ill one suit cannot be read as evidence in another, on the ground that the defendant and one of the plaintiffs in the latter suit, were parties to the former, and that the same point was in controversy in both 5 anothér plaintiff, and thfe person under whom, both the said plaintiffs jointly claimed, not having been parties to such former suit.”

The record in this case denoting no other ground or presumption of privity, we concur in the opinions of the court of common pleas, and its judgment is accordingly affirmed.