Astor Pictures Corp.. v. Shull.
| Decision Date | 04 February 1949 |
| Docket Number | No. 752.,752. |
| Citation | 64 A.2d 160 |
| Parties | ASTOR PICTURES CORPORATION v. SHULL. |
| Court | D.C. Court of Appeals |
OPINION TEXT STARTS HERE
Appeal from the Municipal Court for the District of Columbia, Civil Division.
Suit by Astor Pictures Corporation against Teddy Shull for an accounting. From an order granting defendant's motion to dismiss, plaintiff appeals.
Reversed.
Joseph Luria, of Washington, D. C., for appellant.
J. Robert Corey, of Washington, D. C. (Michael F. Keogh, of Washington, D. C., on the brief), for appellee.
Before CAYTON, Chief Judge, and HOOD and CLAGETT, Associate Judges.
Appeal from an order granting defendant's motion to dismiss a suit for accounting. The complaint alleged that the parties had entered into an agreement under which plaintiff leased certain moving picture prints to defendant on a percentage arrangement under the terms of which defendant was to furnish plaintiff a weekly statement of the gross receipts derived from the rental of such films and to allow plaintiff access to the books of defendant covering rental of such pictures. The complaint further alleged that defendant had refused to furnish reports of the rental of the films, had refused to allow plaintiff inspection of his books of defendant pay plaintiff any part of the rental derived from said films as provided in their agreement. By way of relief plaintiff demanded that defendant be ordered to furnish plaintiff a statement of the rental of the films involved covering the period from November 1, 1947, that plaintiff be allowed to examine defendant's records on the subject and that a money judgment be entered for such amount as may be shown to be due the plaintiff from said rentals. Plaintiff alleged that the amount involved was less than $3,000, the limit of the jurisdiction of the Municipal Court.
Defendant filed a motion to dismiss the accounting suit on the ground that some four months earlier plaintiff had sued him in replevin in the Municipal Court demanding the return of certain chattels (21 moving picture films); that said replevin suit was still pending and had not been disposed of and that in the present accounting action the plaintiff was attempting to separate its cause of action so as to give the Municipal Court jurisdiction. (In the replevin suit plaintiff had valued the films at $3,000.) The motion also recited that in the replevin action defendant Shull had filed a counterclaim demanding damages in an unspecified amount for the wrongful seizure of the motion picture film and that plaintiff had filed an answer to such counterclaim and that under Rule 13(a) of the trial court plaintiff was required to assert any additional claim which it had against the defendant by way of a compulsory counterclaim. At the time of the hearing of the motion to dismiss there was pending plaintiff's motion to consolidate the replevin suit with the suit for accounting. This motion was not acted upon. Defendant's motion to dismiss was granted and this appeal by plaintiff followed.
We think the action should not have been dismissed. Appellant concedes that a single cause of action cannot be split up or divided into two suits aggregating more than the $3,000 jurisdiction of the Municipal Court for the purpose of giving jurisdiction to that court. Aside from the jurisdictional question the rule is well settled that a single or entire claim or demand cannot be split up and divided into separate claims, and separate suits maintained for the various parts thereof. 1 But as the Supreme Court has pointed out the rule does not require that two distinct causes of action, either of which would by itself authorize independent relief, must be presented in a single suit though they exist at the same time and might be considered together. Stark v. Starr, 94 U.S. 477, 24 L.Ed. 276; United States v. The Haytian Republic, 154 U.S. 118, 14 S.Ct. 992, 38 L.Ed. 930. To the same effect are United States v. Pan-American Petroleum Co., 9 Cir., 55 F.2d 753; Brooks v. Yarbrough, 10 Cir., 37 F.2d 527; National Bond and Investment Co. v. Withorn, 281 Ky. 318, 136 S.W.2d 40; McDonald v. Equitable Life Assur. Soc., 269 Ky. 549, 108 S.W.2d 184;...
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