Court Opinion

ID: 9443654
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-03 19:26:43.58469+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:16:36.335865
License: Public Domain

THOMAS, Circuit Judge
(dissenting).
The judgment appealed from reads:
“On the motion of the defendant this action is dismissed as it appears upon the face of the record, supported also by the testimony of the plaintiff, that this action is barred by the statute of limitations, and that there is want of a necessary party against whom the statute of limitations is a bar.”
In his Response to the defendant’s motion to dismiss the complaint D. C. Cummings, the plaintiff, alleged that he owns in his o\vn right 45 acres in Section 32, Township 4 North, Range 14 West, Pulaski County, Arkansas, and that he and his wife own the remainder of said section by the entireties, and that he is the proper party plaintiff. His wife was not made a party to the action in the state court nor to the action in the district court. By what law or act of his wife conferring on him authority so to represent her is not shown. Such right is not conferred upon him by Arkansas law. In the case of Branch v. Polk, 61 Ark. 388, 33 S.W. 424, 425, 30 L.R.A. 324, the Supreme Court of Arkansas say:
“In this state a married woman has full control of her separate property, and may convey and dispose of it as if she were a feme sole. Our constitution and statute have excluded the mhrital rights of the husband therefrom during the life of the wife.”
The majority opinion holds that for these conceded facts
“The entire action therefore was not subject to dismissal on this basis, for some of the property involved was shown to belong to the husband alone.”
I do not understand whether it is meant that the husband plaintiff may recover for the timber, if any, taken from the 45 acres, which he claims in his own right or whether he may recover also for some part of the timber taken from the land held by the husband and wife by the entirety. Since but one undivided claim is made for timber taken from the entire section 32, I think the plaintiff’s wife was a necessary party plaintiff to the action and the running of the statute of limitations against her assumed claim is a bar also to his indefinite claim.
I also think that any recovery upon the amended complaint is barred under Arkansas law by the three-year statute of limitations. The original complaint alleged that in 1945 the defendant wrongfully entered *830upon the land owned by plaintiff in Section 32, Township 3 North, etc., and in the amended complaint he alleged that in 1947 and 1948 defendant wrongfully removed plaintiff’s timber from Section 32 in Township 4 North. In the case of Cottonwood Lumber Co. v. Walker, 106 Ark. 102, 152 S.W. 1005, 1007, 45 L.R.A.,N.S., 429, cited and relied upon by Judge Trimble in the district court, the Supreme Court of Arkansas declared it “to be a fair test, in determining whether a new cause-of action is alleged in an amendment, to inquire if a recovery had upon the original complaint would be a bar to any recovery under the amended complaint, of if the same evidence would support both.” The Court say further in the same opinion that “The statute ■of limitations continues to run as to the cause of action not included in the original ■complaint, but first set up in an amendment thereto until the filing of such amendment.”
I do not think it can be said as a matter of law that had the suit in the state court gone to judgment that judgment would have been a bar to a later suit for the conversion of timber in a tract of land several miles distant. This would be true in the present instance especially since the ownership of the land in the two suits is declared to be different. In the Arkansas case cited above it is said: “No suit by two persons can be the same as by one of them * * * ”; and it is perfectly clear that the suit in which the plaintiff is now seeking recovery is not the same action in which he sought to recover in the state court. As held in the Walker case, supra, “the filing of the amendment to the complaint was tantamount to a dismissal of the cause of action * * * ” alleged in the original complaint. In this connection see, also, Gannon v. Moore, 83 Ark. 196, 104 S.W. 139, and Covington v. Berry, 76 Ark. 460, 88 S.W. 1005.
And since the cause of action stated in the amendment to the complaint is a different cause of action than that alleged in the complaint in the state court, “The statute of limitations continues to run as to a cause of action not included in the original complaint but first set up in an amendment thereto until the filing of such amendment.” Warmack'v. Askew, 97 Ark. 19, 132 S.W. 1013, and cases cited therein. Whether, therefore, the trespass and conversion of timber occurred in 1945, as alleged in the complaint in the state court and the original complaint in the federal court or in 1947 and 1948, as alleged in the amendment to the complaint in the federal court, the three-year statute of limitations had run when the amendment to the complaint in the federal court was filed on February 1, 1952. See, also, Renner v. Progressive Life Ins. Co., 194 Ark. 874, 109 S.W.2d 1245.
I would affirm the judgment appealed from.