Court Opinion

ID: 9807950
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 20:22:04.406554+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:05:19.314653
License: Public Domain

BeowN, J.,
dissenting: I agree with the majority of the Court that the defendants are liable to the plaintiff for the value of the mules, as the power of sale contained in the mortgage is confined in express terms to the land, and does not extend to the mules. Therefore, having seized and sold the mules without any power of sale, the defendants are undoubtedly liable to the plaintiff for their actual, value. •
But I do not think the defendants are liable for the actual value of the land. Under the well settled principles of law, the plaintiff must elect as to whether he will set aside the sale and claim the land, itself, and its rents and profits, or whether he will affirm the sale of the land and demand its actual value.
The original complaint plainly elects to recover the land, itself, with its rents and profits, and demands judgment that the sale be declared null and void and that the deed executed by the. defendant Horse Exchange, under the power of sale, be set aside.
It is true that, after the defendants had joined issue by filing an answer to that complaint, the plaintiff at October Term, 1914, the term when the case was tried, filed, by leave of court, an amended complaint in which they seek to affirm the sale of the land and to recover its value.
While the court may allow amendments to pleadings, the amendment cannot be permitted to have the affect of reversing and revoking the election already made in December, 1913, when the original complaint was filed.
It is well settled that an election, once made, with knowledge of the facts, between coexisting remedial rights, which are inconsistent, is irrevocable and conclusive, irrespective of intent, and constitutes an absolute bar to any action, suit, or proceeding, upon a remedial right, inconsistent with that asserted by the election. 15 Cyc., 262, citing an array of cases.
Speaking of the finality of an election, it is said in the Encyclopedia of Pleading and Practice, vol. 7, p. 364: “It may, therefore, be stated as approximately if not substantially trae, that, subject to the exceptions hereafter stated, the first pronounced act of election is final and imperative. It is certainly the established law in every State that has spoken on the subject, that the definite adoption-of one of two or more incon*466sistent remedies, by a party cognizant of the material facts, is a conclusive and irrevocable bar to his resort to the alternative remedy.”
The exceptions to the rule are want of jurisdiction, premature action, mistaken remedy, ignorance of material facts, none of which apply to the facts in this case. When the plaintiff filed his original complaint, he had full knowledge of the facts therein stated, and more particularly of the Value of the land, as he was its owner and had been for some time.
It does not appear in this record that the defendant consented to the amendment by which the plaintiff was permitted to revoke his election. For these reasons, I am of opinion that the Court should set aside the sale and order a resale, instead of giving judgment against the defendant for the value of the land.