Court Opinion

ID: 7970388
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2022-09-09 00:54:36.18983+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T16:34:45.502904
License: Public Domain

CANTY, J.
(dissenting).
I cannot concur in the foregoing opinion. The original complaint stated a cause of action. The order sustaining a demurrer to it on the ground that it did not state a cause of action was erroneously granted. Failure to make the city a party was a mere technical omission. If the city had been made a party, it could not defeat the plaintiff’s cause of action by refusing to answer, or by admitting in its answer that it had no claim against the other defendants. It might remain a passive party. And if the motion here in question had been granted, and the city had been made a party, it could not plead the statute of limitations for the purpose of preventing itself from receiving the money which would be awarded to it. Neither could the other defendants plead the statute of limitations for the city. Then it follows that the city would be merely a nominal party, and the statute of limitations did not prevent the granting of the motion to make it a party. This seems to be conceded. The majority admit that, if the complaint stated a cause of action, “then the city should be made a nominal party, almost as a matter of course, so as to be bound by the judgment.”
Both the original and the proposed amended complaint state a cause of action, and the same cause of action. While the statute of limitations cannot prevent the bringing in of the city as a party defendant, it will totally defeat the action if the city is not brought in; and therefore the effect of the statute, if this action must be dismissed because the city is not made a. party, has great weight in determining whether or not the court below abused its discretion in denying the motion to make the city a party. The majority seem to hold that, because the demurrer to the original complaint was wrongfully sustained before the motion to bring in the city was made, there was some sort of an estoppel, res adjudicata, or *175law of the case, which justified the court in holding that the city need not he made a party, because the plaintiff had no cause of action. This is holding, in effect, that one erroneous ruling or interlocutory order of the court authorizes it, for the sake of consistency, to make a dozen more erroneous rulings or orders in the course of the proceeding. I cannot subscribe to any such doctrine. In my opinion, the court below abused its discretion in denying the motion to make the city a party.
The majority give as a reason for justifying the order of the court denying the motion to máke the city a party that there are certain so-called equities which make it unjust to prosecute the defendants. In my opinion, there is no place for the consideration of such matters in .such a case as this.