Court Opinion

ID: 9562183
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 18:23:20.895193+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:17:14.798448
License: Public Domain

Head, Justice,
concurring specially. A tenant in common may maintain an action in ejectment for the recovery of land, or for damages, without joining the cotenants, but the judgment shall not affect cotenants who are not parties. Code § 33-103.' A tenant in common may enjoin recurring trespasses without joining his cotenants. Camp v. Garbutt Lumber Co., 129 Ga. 411 (58 S. E. 870).
In the present case the intervention of Mrs. Robertson was duly allowed (without objection), and she became a party plaintiff. The common-law rule, that all plaintiffs must recover or none can, does not prevail in an equitable action pertaining to land. Rumph v. Truelove, 66 Ga. 480 (2); Milner v. Vandivere, 86 Ga. 540 (12 S. E. 879); Bigham v. Kistler, 114 Ga. 453 (40 S. E. 303); Ivey v. Cowart, 124 Ga. 159, 164 (52 S. E. 436, 110 Am. St. R. 160); Happy Valley Farms v. Wilson, 192 Ga. 830, 835 (16 S. E. 2d 720).
The rulings stated in Smith v. Manning, 155 Ga. 209 (116 S. E. 813), Dwight v. First Nat. Bank of Reynolds, 159 Ga. 188 (125 S. E. 62), Jackson v. Taylor, 169 Ga. 300 (150 S. E. 156), Merritt v. Georgia Chemical Works, 170 Ga. 153 (152 S. E. 246), *56and Manning v. Wills, 193 Ga. 82 (17 S. E. 2d 261) are not in any instance related to an action pertaining to land by tenants in common. These and all similar cases have no application to the facts in the present case, and are not authority to sustain a ruling that Mrs. Robertson could not maintain her equitable action because the evidence might be sufficient to show that Zucker (having alleged a good cause of action) was estopped by his own acts and conduct, and for this reason was not entitled to the relief sought.
There was no evidence that Mrs. Robertson had participated in any act that would bar her rights, and since the common-law rule, that all plaintiffs must recover or none can, does not apply in this case (see Milner v. Vandivere, 86 Ga. 540, supra), the directed verdict was proper as to her.