Baughman v. Louisville, E. & St. L.R. Co.

• Decision Date: 09 March 1893
• Citation: 94 Ky. 150,21 S.W. 757
• Parties: BAUGHMAN et al. v. LOUISVILLE, E. & ST. L. R. CO., (four cases.)
• Court: Kentucky Court of Appeals

21 S.W. 757

94 Ky. 150

BAUGHMAN et al. v. LOUISVILLE, E. & ST. L. R. CO., (four cases.)

Court of Appeals of Kentucky.

March 9, 1893

Appeal from court of common pleas, Jefferson county.

To be officially reported.

Action by S. M. Baughman and others against the Louisville Evansville & St. Louis Railroad Company for injuries to live stock while in transportation over its road. The court directed a verdict in plaintiffs' favor for $200, and they appeal. Reversed.

Muir Heyman & Muir and E. T. Trabue, for appellants.

Humphery & Davie, for appellee.

LEWIS J.

This is an appeal from a judgment rendered in an action by Baughman &amp Lasley against Louisville, Evansville & St. Louis Railroad Company, that was tried at the same time and together with three others against the same defendant. It is stated substantially by plaintiffs that they delivered to defendant to be shipped on its road from Louisville to St. Louis, Mo a horse, of which they were owners, named "Hart Wallace," of the value of $25,000; but that while the train was en route defendant's servants in charge negligently placed the car containing the horse and about a dozen others in such position that it collided with another train, and was wrecked, whereby the horse was injured, and plaintiffs were damaged the sum of $1,500. Before and after filing its answer, defendant moved the court to consolidate the action with the three others mentioned, in each of which damage is prayed for by the respective plaintiffs on account of injury done to their horses while on the same car, and that the four actions be removed to the United States circuit court; but that motion was overruled. However, subsequently, the four actions were without objection tried together, and under instruction of the court a separate verdict was returned by the jury in favor of the plaintiffs in each action, though as to each the amount of recovery was limited to the maximum sum of liability fixed by the bill of lading. It seems to us the motion to consolidate the four actions against objections of the parties plaintiff in each case was properly overruled. The general rule prescribed in section 18, Civil Code, is that "every action must be prosecuted in the name of the real party in interest;" and by section 22 "all persons having an interest in the subject of the action and in obtaining the relief demanded may be joined as plaintifs." Therefore, if the plaintiffs had all united originally in one action, the defendant would have had cause of demurrer, for, although the contract for shipping the horses was made with the defendant, and signed by one Weatherford as owner and shipper, he was in fact merely agent of the several firms to whom the animals respectively belong; and neither could he have maintained an action, nor could any one of the four firms have sued for or recovered damages suffered by the others. The subject of each one of the actions was the injury done to the property of and consequent distinct damage to the plaintiffs who brought it; and the plaintiffs in the other actions did not have any interest in the subject or in obtaining the relief therein demanded. If, then, the plaintiffs need not nor could have united in the same action, nor were,...