Court Opinion

ID: 9616257
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 04:44:45.905184+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:03:56.374132
License: Public Domain

Given, Judge,
dissenting:
I would award the writ ás to the second and third judgments, but deny it as to the first.
The record clearly discloses that the first judgment was fully satisfied, final payment thereon having been obtained by way of suggestee execution. To permit a plain*804tiff to obtain judgment, collect the same in full and then return to court and contend that his judgment is void, is to permit abuse of' process of the court. I find nothing in the statutes requiring or permitting any such action. In Bodley v. Archibald, 33 W. Va. 229, 10 S. E. 392, Point 2, syllabus, this Court held: “Where a claim for an amount exceeding the limit of a justice’s jurisdiction, due to two or more persons jointly upon a single contract, is by the creditors, without the consent of the debtor, divided and apportioned among the creditors so that the amount assigned to each is within the jurisdiction of a justice, and one or more of the creditors sues on his portion before a justice and obtains judgment thereon, prohibition will lie, after judgment and before satisfaction, to prevent the justice and the creditor from enforcing such judgment.” (Emphasis supplied).
I can not agree that the claim of Comstock for seven hundred and thirty two dollars constituted a single cause of action. As indicated in the majority opinion, several purchases were made on different dates, merely on an open account. Code, 50-4-18, reads in part: “When the plaintiff has several demands against the same defendant founded on open accounts or on any other contract, express or implied, he shall bring his action for the whole amount due and payable at the time such action is brought, whether the demands be such as might have been heretofore joined in the same action or not. If he brings his action for part only, and such demands do not exceed in the aggregate three hundred dollars, or, in case they do exceed that amount, and the demands are such as could be joined in one action in a court of record having jurisdiction, he shall not recover costs in any subsequent action on the claims not so embraced. * * Several demands “on open account” are precisely what Comstock had against Shawver — not “one inseparable demand”. The fact that the parties may have believed that only one cause of action existed, or “admitted” or treated the several demands as a single cause of action, can not affect the clear meaning of the statute quoted, and, as pointed out *805by the majority, jurisdiction of a court can not be obtained by agreement of the parties.
The provision of Code, 50-4-18, quoted above, that “if he bring his action for part only, and such demands do not •exceed in the aggregate three hundred dollars”, clearly authorizes, I think, a plaintiff to include in one action as many demands as he may have, so long as the aggregate amount of the claims does not exceed three hundred dollars. Flat Top Grocery Co. v. McClaugherty, 46 W. Va. 419, 33 S. E. 252. But this does not mean that a plaintiff can split a demand in order to bring the amount sued for within the three hundred dollar limitation of the jurisdiction of a justice, fixed by the Constitution. Since the aggregate amounts of no claims or demands of Comstock exactly equalled three hundred dollars, the amount of the second judgment, or one hundred and thirty two dollars, the amount of the third judgment, it is clear that there was a splitting of demands as to those two judgments, rendering them void.
Being of these views, I respectfully dissent.