Case ID: mass_10/html/0182-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "\n      By the Court.\n    ", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

* Eleazar W. Ripley versus John Chandler.
    Two actions were commenced by the same plaintiff against a sheriff, for the defaults of two of his deputies in the execution of two several processes; the plaintiff had full costs in both actions, notwithstanding the provision of the statute of 1784, c. 28, § 12, which has been considered as applying to actions upon contract only, and not actions for torts.
    This was an action of the case against the defendant, as sheriff of this county, for the default of one Joshua Gould, his deputy, and was commenced on the 26th of April, 1810, for the Court of Common Pleas then next to be holden on the third Tuesday of the ensuing May. The default complained of was alleged to have been committed in March, 1809.
    At the last term of this court, holden before Thatcher, J., after judgment had been rendered for the. plaintiff for his damages, the defendant moved that the plaintiff should not be allowed to tax his costs ; because, on the 6th of the same April, he had instituted another action against the defendant, for the same term of the Common Pleas, for the default of one Samuel Lovejoy, another deputy of the defendant, alleged to have been committed in March, 1808. In this last action, the plaintiff recovered judgment at the last June term of this court, for his damages, with full costs, and execution had issued thereon.
    The defendant contended that, as he was charged generally ir. each action as sheriff of the county of Kennebeck, both causes of action might have been prosecuted in one suit, and therefore that by the statute of 1784, c. 28, <§> 12, he was entitled to recover nc more costs than in one action only.
    The judge overruled the objection of the defendant, and allowed the plaintiff his full costs; to which opinion the defendant excepted, and the cause stood over to this term, for the consideration of the said point.
    
      Mellen, for the plaintiff,
    cited the case of Morse vs. Hodsdon &f Al., 
       and argued that, upon the principles of that case, the plaintiff was well entitled to the costs of each action.
    
      
       5 Mass. Rep. 314.
    
   By the Court.

The provision of the statute, on which the defendant’s motion is grounded, has been heretofore * considered as applying to actions upon contract only, [ * 176 ] and not to actions for torts,

It is not, however, certain that it was in the power of the plaintiff to join these two actions in one. The subjects of complaint were different, committed at different times, and by different persons Non constat that, when the plaintiff commenced the first action, he knew of the wrong of which he complains in the second.

But the principle of the point resolved in the case of Morse vs. Hodsdon applies to the case at bar. The actions were in different rights, and different interests were to be affected by them. The defendant and his deputies might have had reason to complain, if the two causes had been joined in one action. The opinion of the judge is confirmed, and the defendant takes nothing by his motion.

ADDITIONAL NOTE.

[Two actions of trespass qu. clans, were commenced, on different days, by A against 15, the one for taking away manure, the other for cutting and carrying away wood, on the same land, returnable before a justice of the peace on the same day ; the damages being laid, in each, at 20 dollars. Held, the plaintiff should recover costs m both suits. — Dorrell vs. Johnson, 17 Pick. 263.

Where two suits are brought at the same term, which might be joined in one, the plaintiff shall have full costs in one of them at his election, and such additional costs in the other, as would have been incurred, had only one action been commenced — Stafford vs. Go’d, 9 Pick 533. —F. H.]

Warren for the defendant. 
      
      
         [In the English courts, a consolidation rule may be obtained, as well in cases ot tort as of contract.— Tidd. Pr., 8th ed. p. 664. In a modern case, where thirty-seven ejectments had been brought against several tenants, for different premises, on the same demise, Lord Kenyon, C. J., on a rule to show cause why the proceedings in all the cases should not be stayed, and abide the event of a special verdict in one of them, said “ it was a scandalous proceeding; that they all depended precisely on the same title, and ought to be tried by the same record; ” and the rule was made absolute. — Tidil. Pr., p. 666.— See 2 Selw. Pr. 1st ed. 229.—Ad. Eject. 2d ed. 235, 236.— Barnes, 176. — 1 Str. 420. — 1 Smith, 423. — Ed.]