Case ID: scl_11/html/0495-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Johnson, J.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Catharine Bates v. John Quatttlebom.
    A brought an action against B, for the conversion of a quantity of cotton, and obtained a verdict; and afterward^ commenced another action for the conversion of a part of the same cotton. Held, that the former recovery was a good plea in bar to the second action.
    Tried before Mr. Justice Johnson, at Lexington, October, 1819.
    This was a summary process, brought to recover the value of some cotton, charged to be the property of the plaintiff, which the defendant had converted to his own use.
    The defendant pleaded a former recovery in bar, and produced the record of a special action on the case, in which it was alleged that the plaintiff had carried a large quantity of cotton to the defendant’s machine to be picked and packed, and that by his negligence, it had been burnt and destroyed, in which the plaintiff had a verdict for a large sum.
    *The plaintiff admitted that this action was brought for part of the r same cotton, but offered to prove, that before the cotton was burnt, the *■ defendant had taken from it his toll for picking and packing, and insisted that the plaintiff was entitled to recover the value of the cotton so taken in this action, as the defendant was not entitled to toll, as the cotton was not picked and packed.
    The Court being of opinion that the former recovery was a bar to the present action, gave a decree for defendant.
    A motion was made to set aside the decree, and a new trial, on the ground that the plaintiff was not barred by the former recovery.
   The opinion of the Court was delivered by

Johnson, J.

This case has been submitted without argument, and I am wholly unable to see any foundation for the present motion. In the first action the plaintiff had a right and doubtless did go for the whole quantity of cotton delivered, and if she did not, she was equally concluded, because she would not have been allowed to split up an entire cause of action into as many as she might think proper. The jury who tried that cause, were bound to allow her the full value of all the cotton delivered ; and whether he was entitled to, or did take his toll, was a matter of no consequence, for if they made the value of seed cotton the measure of damages, then he was entitled to no allowance; but if they made the value of cotton, picked and packed, the standard, then a deduction ought to have been made for the expenses of picking and packing.

Butler and Butler, for the motion. Stark, contra.

The motion must be refused.

Colcock. Nott, Gantt, and Rjcharuson, concurred.

See 4 McC. 23.