Case Name: TOWN OF WlLKESBORO, a Municipal Corporation, Through its Mayor, W. E. HARRIS; R. R. REINS, JOE R. BARBER, C. E. LENDERMAN, and L. B. DULA, Commissioners; W. E. HARRIS, Mayor of the Town of WlLKESBORO; P. L. LENDERMAN, Tax Collector and Chief of Police of the Town of WlLKESBORO; MRS. O. F. BLEVINS, Widow of O. F. BLEVINS, Town Clerk and Treasurer of the Town of WlLKESBORO, and RUSSELL HENDREN, Superintendent of Water for the Town of WlLKESBORO, v. J. F. JORDAN, WILLIAM A. STROUD, J. R. HENDERSON, W. E. SMITHEY, C. A. LOWE, C. T. DOUGHTON, J. M. BUMGARNER, and J. T. PREVETTE
Court: Supreme Court of North Carolina
Jurisdiction: North Carolina
Decision Date: 1937-10-13
Citations: 212 N.C. 197
Docket Number: 
Parties: TOWN OF WlLKESBORO, a Municipal Corporation, Through its Mayor, W. E. HARRIS; R. R. REINS, JOE R. BARBER, C. E. LENDERMAN, and L. B. DULA, Commissioners; W. E. HARRIS, Mayor of the Town of WlLKESBORO; P. L. LENDERMAN, Tax Collector and Chief of Police of the Town of WlLKESBORO; MRS. O. F. BLEVINS, Widow of O. F. BLEVINS, Town Clerk and Treasurer of the Town of WlLKESBORO, and RUSSELL HENDREN, Superintendent of Water for the Town of WlLKESBORO, v. J. F. JORDAN, WILLIAM A. STROUD, J. R. HENDERSON, W. E. SMITHEY, C. A. LOWE, C. T. DOUGHTON, J. M. BUMGARNER, and J. T. PREVETTE.
Judges: 
Reporter: North Carolina Reports
Volume: 212
Pages: 197–200

Head Matter:
TOWN OF WlLKESBORO, a Municipal Corporation, Through its Mayor, W. E. HARRIS; R. R. REINS, JOE R. BARBER, C. E. LENDERMAN, and L. B. DULA, Commissioners; W. E. HARRIS, Mayor of the Town of WlLKESBORO; P. L. LENDERMAN, Tax Collector and Chief of Police of the Town of WlLKESBORO; MRS. O. F. BLEVINS, Widow of O. F. BLEVINS, Town Clerk and Treasurer of the Town of WlLKESBORO, and RUSSELL HENDREN, Superintendent of Water for the Town of WlLKESBORO, v. J. F. JORDAN, WILLIAM A. STROUD, J. R. HENDERSON, W. E. SMITHEY, C. A. LOWE, C. T. DOUGHTON, J. M. BUMGARNER, and J. T. PREVETTE.
(Filed 13 October, 1937.)
Pleadings §§ 2, 16 — Separate and distinct causes of action by different plaintiffs against different defendants may not be joined.
Tbis action was instituted by a municipality and tbe officers thereof against defendants who had held the offices as the result of an illegal election. Plaintiffs sought to recover in their individual capacity for their salaries prior to their obtaining possession of their respective offices, and against the sureties on a bond filed by some of defendants in an action attacking the validity of the election, which bond was conditioned upon payment to plaintiffs of salaries received by defendants if plaintiffs should be successful in the action, and against defendants for fraudulent disbursement of town funds. Held: Defendants’ demurrer for misjoinder of parties and causes should have been allowed, since the town had no interest in the recovery by the officers in their individual capacity of the amounts alleged to be due them for salary, and since the individual plaintiffs had no right to maintain an action to recover for alleged fraudulent disbursement of town funds, nor were the sureties on the bond alleged to be liable either on that cause of action, or the action against the defendants not named in the bond. O. S., 507.
Appeal by defendants from Clement, J., at August Term, 1937, of Wilkes.
Judgment reversed and action dismissed.
Tbe defendants demurred to the complaint on the ground of misjoinder of parties and causes of action.
These are the material allegations of the complaint: That the town of Wilkesboro is a municipal corporation, and plaintiffs Harris, Lender-man, Barber, Reins, and Dula were mayor and commissioners of said town, P. L. Lenderman, tax collector and chief of police, and Mrs. O. E. Blevins is the widow of O. F. Blevins, deceased, and claims as part of her year’s allowance the balance of salary due O. E. Blevins as secretary and treasurer of the town.
That the defendants Jordan, Doughton, Henderson, and Lowe, by the use of illegal ballots at the election on 7 May, 1935, caused themselves to be wrongfully declared elected mayor and commissioners of said town, and unlawfully held said offices during the period from 16 August, 1935, to 11 December, 1935, when the individual plaintiffs came lawfully to the the exercise of said offices, in accordance with the decisions of the Supreme Court of North Carolina in the actions entitled Wilkesboro v. Harris (reported in 208 N. C., 749) and Harris v. Miller (reported in 208 N. 0., 746).
That in the action entitled Wilkesboro v. Harris, supra, the defendants Jordan, Henderson, Doughton, and Lowe executed a bond to these individual plaintiffs (other than Russell Hendren) in the penal sum of $1,500, with defendants Bumgarner and Prevette as sureties, said bond conditioned that in case the named individual plaintiffs were successful in the action the defendants should pay said plaintiffs the salaries, fees, emoluments, and moneys received by the defendants during their occupancy of said offices.
That during the litigation over these offices, plaintiffs were required to and did turn over to defendants all the money, books, and property of said town, including cash, tax books, and tax sales certificates., and that defendants wrongfully and unlawfully collected from taxes, tax sales certificates, and water rents more than $6,000, and that from said funds of the town defendants made unlawful and fraudulent expenditures, and unlawfully and corruptly used a part of said funds to purchase bonds of said town, not in the order of issue (as provided by the agreement of the town with, the bondholders), from a bank in which two of the defendants were officers, which said bonds the bank had purchased at fifty cents on the dollar.
That the defendants withheld the salaries of plaintiff Harris in the sum of $50.00, that of P. L. Lenderman in the sum of $251.35, and that of O. F. Blevins in the sum of $77.00.
That the defendants, other than Bumgarner and Prevette, wrongfully withheld from plaintiff Eussell Hendren, superintendent of water, salary amounting to $39.00.
“That plaintiffs are entitled to recover of defendants Bumgarner and Prevette the sums set out to the extent of $1,500, the amount named in their bond, which is hereto attached and made a part hereof.”
“That the plaintiffs are entitled to recover of defendants, other than Bumgarner and Prevette, the total sums above set out, amounting to $6,296.32.”
From judgment overruling the-demurrer, defendants appealed.
Eugene TriveUe and Chas. H. Gilreath for plaintiffs, appellees.
A. H. Casey, W. H. McElwee, and J. M. Broten for defendants, appellants.

Opinion:
DeviN, J.
An examination of the allegations of the complaint leads us to the conclusion that the demurrer on the ground of misjoinder of parties, and causes of action should have been sustained. The complaint joins (1) an action on contract by the plaintiffs Harris, Lenderman, and Blevins for the recovery from defendants Jordan, Henderson, Doughton, and Love, as principals, and Bumgarner and Prevette sureties, the different items of salary due the named plaintiffs, according to the condition of the bond attached to the complaint; (2) with an action by plaintiff Eussell Hendren, superintendent of water, to recover of defendants, other than Bumgarner and Prevette, $39.00, being part of his salary wrongfully withheld by defendant (not included in the bond) ; and (3) an action, sounding in tort, by the town against the defendants other than defendants Bumgarner and Prevette, for six thousand dollars of town funds alleged to have been wrongfully collected and unlawfully and fraudulently expended by the defendants.
It is obvious that the individual plaintiffs, as such, under the allegations of the complaint, could not maintain an action to recover town funds wrongfully collected and fraudulently misapplied. Ordinarily, the town alone could be heard to make that claim. Equally, the town of Wilkesboro has no interest in the cause of action by the individual plaintiffs to recover of the defendants on the bond the different amounts alleged to be due them; and the defendants Bumgarner and Prevette, tbe sureties on tbe bond, are not alleged to be in any way liable on tbe cause of action by tbe town against tbe other defendants for alleged fraudulent collection and disbursement of tbe funds of tbe town; nor are tbey alleged to be liable to plaintiff Hendren on bis claim. Illustrating tbe mix-up in parties and causes of action, it appears tbat tbe town of Wilkesboro, party plaintiff in tbis action, was one of tbe signers of tbe bond upon wbicb tbe action of its coplaintiffs is based, tbus being placed in tbe unusual position of being joined as a party plaintiff in a suit for tbe breach of a bond wbicb it executed. »
Tbe several causes of action united in tbe complaint do not affect all tbe parties to tbe action, as required by C. S., 507. . Sasser v. Bullard, 199 N. C., 562. It is well settled in tbis jurisdiction tbat separate and distinct causes of action set up by different plaintiffs and against different defendants may not be incorporated in tbe same pleading. Williams v. Gooch, 206 N. C., 330; Weaver v. Kirby, 186 N. C., 387; Rose v. Warehouse Co., 182 N. C., 107; Roberts v. Mfg. Co., 181 N. C., 204.
In Rose v. Warehouse Co., supra, it was said: "Tbe several causes of action wbicb may be united or joined in the same complaint are classified and enumerated in C. S., 507; and, in addition, tbe following limitation is expressly incorporated therein: 'But tbe causes of action so united must all belong to one of these classes, and, except in actions for tbe foreclosure of mortgages, must affect all tbe parties to tbe action, and not require different places of trial, and must be separately stated.' " It was said in Land Co. v. Beatty, 69 N. C., 329, tbat tbe plaintiff could not in tbe same complaint join a cause of action on contract against one defendant with a cause of action on tbe fraud of both. To the same effect is tbe bolding in R. R. v. Hardware Co., 135 N. C., 73, where tbe general principle is stated that all tbe parties must be affected by each cause of action to warrant their joinder.
Tbe situation here set forth in tbe complaint differs from tbat upon wbicb was predicated tbe rule that, where tbe facts alleged show a connected series of transactions, all tending to one end, in order to a conclusion of tbe whole matter in one suit, tbe complaint would be upheld, as was decided in Trust Co. v. Peirce, 195 N. C., 717; Shaffer v. Bank, 201 N. C., 415; Young v. Young, 81 N. C., 92; Barkley v. Really Co., 211 N. C., 540; Leach v. Page, 211 N. C., 622.
We are of opinion, and so decide, tbat tbe judgment overruling the demurrer must be reversed, and tbe action dismissed. Bank v. Angelo, 193 N. C., 576; Shuford v. Yarborough, 197 N. C., 150.
Tbis disposition of tbe case renders it unnecessary to decide whether tbe complaint sufficiently states a cause of action against tbe defendants for alleged fraudulent disbursement of town funds.
Judgment reversed and action dismissed.