Court Opinion

ID: 9808359
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 20:35:50.526992+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:11:50.392207
License: Public Domain

Connor, J.,
dissenting: As far back as 1879, in Young v. Young, 81 N. C., 91, Mr. Justice Ashe said: “While it was tbe object of tbe legislature by adopting section 126 of Tbe Code (now section 267) to avoid a multiplicity of suits and prevent protracted and vexatious litigation, the first sub-division of tbe section has given rise to more unprofitable litigation and fine spun disquisition upon its construction than any other section, not excepting section 343 (590).” After reviewing a number of decisions, he concludes: “And so complex, uncertain and defiant of logic has the subject proved that tbe courts have failed to derive any aid from even the ‘reason of the thing’, that dernier resort of some judges when all other resources have failed.” With this uninviting introduction to the subject, one may well hesitate to enter upon its discussion. With all possible deference to the judges, an examination of the cases, since the words quoted were written, does not show any very marked progress in placing the subject on any satisfactory *244basis. A perusal of the very full briefs of counsel in this case only tends to illustrate the truth that judges are not unlike doctors in their proverbial tendency to differ. It is not in this case a matter of very great importance whether the demurrer be sustained or overruled, and the usual reason, which is advanced for writing dissenting opinions that the decision of the court is out of line with the precedents, does not exist, because it must be conceded I think that each brief contains decisions which fully sustain the respective views. If we attempt to follow the numerous decisions in the Code States, we will soon find ourselves in a labyrinth of ever crossing paths leading to confusion worse confounded.
I cannot concur with the opinion of the court, not because I think it is unsupported by authority, but because I think the weight of authority and the “reason of' the thing” the other way, and that it is productive of confusion and probable injustice. A few general elementary propositions appear to be practically agreed upon. “A claim against two or more defendants cannot be properly united in the same bill with a separate claim against one only. Beach Mod. Eq. Pr. Sec. 421. Causes of action which may be joined must affect all parties to the action. Therefore, when a complete determination to a cause of action, joined with others, requires parties not necessary to the other causes of action, held to be demurrable.” Logan v. Wallis, 76 N. C., 416. Rodman, J. says: “The fifth cause of action is misjoined with the others.” C. C. P. Sec. 126 says that “The causes of action which may be joined must affect all the parties to the action
“The defendants in each statement must be the same; that is the parties must he affected by each cause of action, and it is a misjoinder (in equity pleading it is called multifariousness) to charge certain persons as respects one cause of action, and in another statement bring in another party *245or show another party is interested, or that some of the necessary parties in the former statement are not interested.” Bliss Code Pleading 123. If these propositions are correct, I am unable to see any “legal affinity” between the causé of action alleged against The Southern Loan & Trust Company and "Wharton based upon alleged dealings with the plaintiff’s intestate resulting in the conveyance to a trustee for the Trust Company which it is sought to cancel, and the cause of action against Wharton alone for alleged misconduct in the sale of the Benbow Hotel, in which sp far as I am able to perceive, the Trust Company has and can by no possibility have the most remote interest. A careful examination, with the aid of very able briefs and oral arguments, fails to discover any other connection between Wharton’s dealing with Fisher in respect to the Benbow Hotel and the Trust Company building and the contracts relating thereto, than that which arises from the fact that two of the persons are parties to one and three of them to the other transaction. No judgment upon or in regard to the sale of the Benbow Hotel could possibly affect the Trust Company — therefore, by the test which this court in Logan v. Wallis, supra, applied, they should not be joined; that the judgment “must affect all the parties to the action.” While it would not be profitable to undertake to distinguish the many cases cited in the plaintiff’s brief and relied upon by the court from the one before us, it may be noted that in Gaines v. Chew, 2 How. (43 U. S.) 619, the court held that in respect to one defendant there was a misjoinder, because she claimed under another source.
Mr. Justice McLean says in respect to another objection: “In the rendition of this account the other defendants have no interest, and such a matter, therefore, ought not to be connected with the general objects of the bill.”
In Benton v. Collins, 118 N. C., 196, the primary right sought to be enforced against Collins was redress for per*246sonal injury. It was alleged that for tbe purpose of obstructing the enforcement of this right he had made a fraudulent conveyance to the other defendants of his property. The joinder of the two causes of action was properly sustained. The question is thus stated by Smith, C. J., in Bank v. Harris, 84 N. C., 206: “Why should a plaintiff be compelled to sue for and recover his debt and then to bring a new action to enforce payment out of his debtor’s property -in the very court that ordered the judgment?” When the mind accepts the truth that in respect to the ultimate relief which the law gives to one sustaining a personal injury is the same as that given for failure to pay a debt— a final process against the defendant’s property, it is clearly seen that there is no reason why obstruction to such relief may not be removed by the same judicial procedure in the one case as in the other. The proposition is stated “when several persons, although unconnected with each other, are made defendants, a demurrer will not lie if they have a common interest centering in the point in issue in the cause.” Heggie v. Hill, 95 N. C., 303. This is equally applicable to the decisionfin Daniels v. Fowler, 120 N. C., 14; Hamlin v. Tucker, 12 N. C., 502. It is said, however, that “if one connected story can be told of the whole, then the objection cannot apply.” This phrase has been used by many eminent equity judges and when kept within proper limitations is a happy one. Happy phrases and epigrams like analogies, may sometimes be overworked. In Bedsole v. Monroe, 40 N. C., 313, in which the expression is used by Ruffin, C. J., there was but one defendant. The Chief Justice expressly notes the difference in the practice sustaining demurrers for multifariousness where two defendants are brought in, and where only one is before the court. A man’s entire business career is, in a certain sense, one connected story. Each part is interlinked with and in a measure dependent upon that which precedes it.- Certainly it is in no such sense *247that all persons with whom be deals or bas business relations are correlated for tbe purpose of being joined in one civil action in courts of justice. There must be some “legal affinity” between persons and transactions to entitle him to bring them into court yoked together. A failure to observe this elementary principle in the law of procedure destroys that reasonable certainty and simplicity in the administration of justice which is so desirable and produces confusion, uncertainty and injustice. All reforms are endangered and often defeated by their advocates who in turning their backs upon the past, rejecting its teachings based upon experience, plunge into unknown and untried fields, causing to come abont the very evils which they vainly suppose they are avoiding, Any one at all conversant with judicial proceedings, knows that substantive rights and liabilities are indissolubly connected with remedial rights and liabilities. Without further discussion of a subject which is not-indebted to either text writers or judges to any very great extent for clarification, I content myself with saying that I am unable to see in what way the several causes of action set forth in the complaint can be said to be “the same transaction or transactions connected with the same subject of action.” If the plaintiff, as The Oode requires, had stated separately the two or more causes of action, the absence of legal relationship would have been more transparent. I think that the demurrer should have been sustained and such order made as The Oode provides.
Walker, J. concurs in the dissenting opinion.