American Oil Co. v. Carlisle

• Decision Date: 17 January 1949
• Citation: 63 A.2d 676
• Parties: AMERICAN OIL CO. v. CARLISLE et al.
• Court: Maine Supreme Court

63 A.2d 676

AMERICAN OIL CO.

v.CARLISLE et al.

Supreme Judicial Court of Maine.

Jan. 17, 1949.

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED.

Exceptions from Superior Court, Somerset County, in Equity.

Action by the American Oil Company against Edward A. Carlisle and Suzanne M. Carlisle for damages for breach of covenants in a lease. The case was ordered to be heard in equity and from a decree for the plaintiff, defendants bring exceptions.

Exceptions sustained, decree vacated and cause remanded.

Perkins, Weeks & Hutchins, of Waterville, and Richard M. Sullivan, of Portland, for plaintiff.

Paul L. Woodworth, of Fairfield, for defendants.

Before STURGIS, C. J., and THAXTER, MURCHIE, TOMPKINS, FELLOWS, and MERRILL, JJ.

MERRILL, Justice.

On exceptions by defendants. ‘This was an action on the case to recover damages for the breach of alleged covenants to make alterations, and to make repairs, contained in a lease. By order of Court, plaintiff furnished specifications of its claims, and defendants furnished specifications of their defense. The Court ordered the case to be heard in equity. At the conclusion, the Court awarded the plaintiff damages in the sum of two thousand eight hundred sixty-two dollars and sixty-four cents ($2862.64) the full amount claimed.’ These facts are set forth in the bill of exceptions. It also appeared, and was freely admitted by counsel for the plaintiff, during argument, that the plaintiff's only claim was to recover pecuniary damages for the breach of certain alleged covenants by the defendants to make alterations and repairs as provided in a certain lease from the defendants to the plaintiff, and that it sought no equitable relief either before or after the transfer.

The defendants' bill of exceptions contains twenty-five specific exceptions directed to as many claimed errors in the course of the proceedings and in the findings of the presiding Justice, also a general exception to the judgment and decree. The twenty-third exception was:--

‘To the ruling that the moneys expended, labor and materials furnished by the plaintiff, in good faith and for amounts receivable, for its losses, caused proximately by defendants' breach of covenant are recoverable in the present action, the defendants except.’ As this and the general exception must be sustained and the decree vacated, upon the grounds hereinafter set forth, there is no need to consider the other exceptions.

Neither the fact that the plaintiff had a ‘plain, adequate and complete’ remedy at law, nor legal error, due thereto, in the transfer from law to equity were specifically assigned as the grounds upon which these two exceptions were taken. Each of these grounds is directed to the ‘equity jurisdiction’ of the Court, that is to the authority of a court of equity to take cognizance of and determine the cause upon its merits. In this limited sense they are jurisdictional in their nature. It they have been made to appear to the Court, they require the sustaining of said exceptions even though not specifically assigned as grounds therefor.

Enough appears to make it clearly apparent that had the plaintiff, in the first instance, filed a bill in equity to enforce its claim for pecuniary damages for breach of covenant, it could not have maintained the same. Such claim would neither have required nor even justified equitable relief. The bill would have to be dismissed on the ground that the plaintiff had a plain, adequate and complete remedy at law. With some possible exceptions, of which this is not one, the statute conferring full equity powers upon the Court excludes all cases where there is a ‘plain, adequate and complete remedy at law.’ Such cases are beyond the equity jurisdiction of the Court.

In the instant case neither before nor after the transfer was the relief sought, nor was the relief awarded equitable in its nature to the slightest degree. The plaintiff's claim was purely legal in its nature. It did not even savor of equity as distinguished from law. All that the plaintiff sought, either before or after the transfer from law to equity, was a judgment for money damages, and such was the only relief obtained. His remedy at law was plain, adequate and complete, and there is not even a suggestion to the contrary.

We are here presented with a situation where it has been made to appear to this Court that the Justice of the Superior Court at Nisi Prius has of his own motion transferred to the equity court and heard and determined in equity, and as a cause in equity, a cause of action strictly legal in its nature and in which the only relief asked, or which could be given, was the legal relief afforded by a judgment for money damages. The situation thus presented is to say the least a novel one.

At common law a Justice at Nisi Prius had no power to transfer an action at law to the equity court. Such power and authority as such Justice now possesses must depend solely upon statutory provision. Such power and authority as he has in this respect is derived from R.S. Chap. 100, Sec. 15. It was under authority of this section of the statute that the presiding Justice in this case presumed to act. This section is as follows:--

‘When, in an action at law in the superior court, it appears that the rights of the parties can be better determined and enforced by a judgment and decree in equity, the court may, upon reasonable terms, strike out the pleadings at law and require the parties to plead in equity in the same cause and may hear and determine the cause in equity.’

This is the first section of the so-called ‘Law and Equity Act’, R.S. Chap. 100, Sections 15-21. It was originally enacted as P.L.1893, Chap. 217. Except for changing the words ‘Supreme Judicial Court’ in the original Act to ‘superior court’ as in the present revision, Section 1 of the original Act is identical with Section 15, supra.

The foregoing section of the statute does not enlarge the jurisdiction of a court of equity. It merely provides a new method of placing a case which a court of equity has the power to consider before it for determination.

If it is only when the rights of the parties can be ‘better’ determined in equity that the Justice may act, it is clear that it is a condition precedent to such action on his part that the rights of the parties can be determined in equity. Before the rights of the parties can be determined in equity, there must be a cause of action within the jurisdiction of the equity court to hear and determine. Then and only then can the court in the words of the statute ‘strike out the pleadings at law and require the parties to plead in equity in the same cause and * * * hear and determine the cause in equity.’

Unless a bill in equity sets forth a cause of action within the equity jurisdiction of the court it cannot be maintained. If after an order of the kind provided for in Section 15 the plaintiff cannot state his case as a cause of action within the equity jurisdiction of the court, it cannot be maintained, and by the same token the Justice cannot hear and determine the cause in equity.

We hold that the power of a Justice at Nisi Prius to act under Section 15 of the Law and Equity Act is limited to those cases only in which the plaintiff's cause of action may be stated as a cause of action within the jurisdiction of an equity court to hear and determine. Unless the cause of action is of this nature a Justice of the Superior Court has no power nor authority to order its transfer to equity under said section of the statute. Such order in excess of his power and authority would be legal error, and would confer no jurisdiction on the equity court to hear and determine the cause. Neither does the fact that in such a case the defendant may have pleaded an equitable defense to the action at law under R.S. Chap. 100, Sec. 18 authorize the transfer from law to equity. Section 18, unlike Section 15, does not contemplate pleading in equity and a transfer to the equity court and the hearing and determining of the case in equity. Under Section 18 the equitable defense is to be pleaded at law. Instead of striking out the pleadings at law and pleading in equity as in the cases provided for in Section 15, the statute provides that the equitable defense ‘shall be pleaded in the form of a brief statement under the general issue.’ Instead of providing that the case shall be heard and determined in equity, as in Section 15, Section 18 provides that he ‘shall receive such relief as he would be entitled to receive in equity, against such claim of the defendant.’ If in view of these provisions of the statute there be a doubt as to the question of whether Section 18 contemplates the transfer of the cause to a court of equity, Section 19 is conclusive. By that section the court in an action at law to which an equitable defense is pleaded under Section 18 is given the power to ‘make such decrees and restraining orders as may be necessary to protect and preserve such equitable rights, and may issue injunctions according to the usual practice of courts of equity.’

The power and authority to transfer an action at law to the equity court depends upon the nature of the cause of action, not upon the nature of the defense alleged thereto.

It becomes necessary, therefore, in determining the power of the presiding Justice in the instant case to order the transfer of the action at law to equity and to hear and determine the same in equity, to examine the nature of the plaintiff's claim to see whether or not the same was within the jurisdiction of the equity court.

As we have heretofore shown, in the instant case the plaintiff had a plain, adequate and complete remedy at law. Under such circumstances, subject to certain exceptions of which this is not one, there can be no remedy in equity. Such cases are not within the jurisdiction of an equity court. We said in Caleb v. Hearn, 72 Me. 231:--

‘The only relief sought, is compensation in damages for a wrong fully...