Chappell v. Boykin

• Decision Date: 01 November 1960
• Docket Number: 6 Div. 772
• Court: Alabama Court of Appeals
• Parties: Grady V. CHAPPELL v. Edaline BOYKIN.

Page 636

127 So.2d 636

41 Ala.App. 137

Grady V. CHAPPELL v. Edaline BOYKIN.

6 Div. 772.

Court of Appeals of Alabama.

Nov. 1, 1960.

Rehearing Denied Nov. 29, 1960.

Tweedy & Beech, Jasper, for appellant.

Bevill & Bevill, Jasper, for appellee.

HARWOOD, Presiding Judge.

This is an appeal from a judgment for $1,000 entered in the court below in favor of the appellant, who sued as personal representative of Brooks D. Boykin, deceased. The complaint contained two counts, one based on negligence and the second on wanton misconduct. The suit was filed under the provisions of Act 113, First Extra Session, 1956, page 171, (Sec. 123(1) Tit. 7, Code of Alabama 1940). This act provided that the personal representative of a deceased may maintain an action in this State and recover such damages as the jury may assess for injuries or damages to the property of the decedent resulting from the same wrongful act, omission or negligence, which caused the death of the decedent provided the decedent could have maintained such action if the wrongful act had not caused his death, and the damages recovered are not subject to the payment of the debts or liabilities of the decedent, but must be distributed according to the statute of distributions. The act further provides that such action must be brought within one year from and after and death of the decedent.

This act is in many respects identical with Sec. 123, Tit. 7, Code of Alabama 1940, which section created a right of action for a wrongful act resulting in death, and is commonly known as the wrongful death or homicide statute.

The present suit was filed on April 25, 1959.

On May 5, 1959, demurrers were filed to the complainant. The plaintiff below thereafter filed an amendment to his complaint, and this defendant on Sept. 3, 1959, filed demurrers to the complaint as amended.

The demurrers to the complaint being overruled, the defendant then filed the following special plea:

'Comes the defendants each separately and severally and in addition to pleading in short by consent, the general issue and contributory negligence, and with leave of the court first had and obtained, each separately and severally file the following special written plea to said complaint and to each and every count thereof separately and severally and says as follows:

'That on, to-wit, April 25, 1959 the plaintiff in this case filed suit against these same defendants seeking damages for the death of Brooks D. Boykin who was killed in the automobile accident on, to-wit, April 29, 1958, and killed in the same accident for which the plaintiff, in the case at bar number 2394, has filed a suit for which the plaintiff, in the case at bar number 2394, has filed a suit for property damages and destruction of an automobile which belonged to the said Brooks D. Boykin, and which was damaged or demolished in the said same accident in which the said Brooks D. Boykin was killed; that said case No. 2392 wherein the plaintiff filed suit against these same defendants for damages for the death of Brooks D. Boykin, deceased had a final judgment rendered in it in favor of plaintiff against these two defendants on to-wit, September 18th, 1959 and the plaintiff in said case recovered of these defendants the sum of Five Thousand Dollars ($5,000.00) in said judgment; that said judgment was paid and has been collected by the plaintiff in this case and the judgment rendered in favor of the plaintiff against these said defendants in said case No. 2392 in the Circuit Court of Walker County, Alabama, is a bar and prohibits the plaintiff in Case No. 2394 from recovering a judgment against these defendants in this case at bar; that the plaintiff has attempted to split her caused (sic) of action which she cannot do; that the claim for the damages for the damage or destruction of the automobile of Brooks Boykin arose out of the said automobile accident and out of the same alledged (sic) wrongful act of these said defendants and which happened at the same time and place, and all of which facts the defendants plead in bar to this suit.'

The plaintiff's demurrer to this special plea was sustained, and the sustention of this demurrer is the basis of appellant's argument as to assignments of error numbers 3 and 4.

In brief the argument in support of these assignments is to the purport that the court's action in sustaining the demurrer to the special plea was to permit a single cause of action to be split into two suits, to the vexation of the appellant.

It is counsel's contention both the wrongful death and the property damage arose from the same wrongful or negligent act, with damages recoverable by the personal representative for identical distribution in each case, and therefore created only one cause of action.

In a majority of jurisdictions in the United States, the rule is that a single act causing simultaneous injury to the physical person and to property of one individual gives rise to only one cause of action, and not to separate causes based on the one hand on personal injury, and on the other on property damage. The basis of this rule is that a 'cause of action' grows out of the wrongful act, and not the various forms of damages that may flow from the single wrongful act.

The effect of this majority rule is to bar a second suit where one has already recovered damages in one aspect, that is either for personal injuries or property damages.

The minority view, which also prevails in England, is that a 'cause of action' is founded not in the wrongful act, but in the damaging results thereof, and different damages or results give separate causes of actions.

An excellent annotation relative to separate or single causes of action where injuries to person and property of one person result simultaneously from one wrongful act, together with numerous authorities illustrating the doctrines enunciated, may be found in 62 A.L.R.2d at pages 980-1009.

Express approval of the majority view may be found in Birmingham Southern Ry. Co. v. Lintner, 141 Ala. 420, 38 So. 363, though the court was considering the question of permissive joinder of claims for damages resulting from loss of society of plaintiff's wife, and injuries to his horse and buggy, and was not considering the question of res judicata.

One reason for the rule against splitting the cause of action is to prevent a multiplicity of suits. The rule exists mainly for the protection of the defendant, to save and protect him from vexatious litigation and to avoid the cost and expenses incident to numerous suits on the same cause of action. Wilkes v. Hood, 237 Ala. 72, 185 So. 748. The rule prohibiting splitting the cause of action being primarily for the benefit of the defendant may be waived by him. It is to be noted from the special plea above set out that the suit under the wrongful death statute (Sec. 123, Tit. 7, supra) was filed on April 25, 1959, the same filing date as the present suit, and that a final judgment was rendered in the wrongful death case on Sept. 18, 1959, which judgment had been collected by the plaintiff prior to the filing on November 10, 1959, of the special plea.

In Georgia Railway & Power Co. v. Endsley, 167 Ga. 439, 145 S.E. 851, 854, 62 A.L.R. 256, the Supreme Court of Georgia held that a defendant, by failing to object or raise the issue of splitting a cause of action until after the plaintiff has recovered a judgment in the property damage suit, is presumed to have consented to the splitting of the cause of action and cannot plea the property judgment in bar of the action for personal injuries, the court stating:

'This waiver will be presumed if a plaintiff maintains two suits against a defendant at the same time for different items of the same demand, and he fails to interpose timely objection. * * *

'In such a situation a defendant is presumed to have waived his right to object; he has implicitly consented.'

To the same effect as the rule stated in the Endsley case, supra, are Hall-Martin Co. v. Hughes, 18 Cal.App. 513, 123 P. 617; Louisville Bridge Co. v. Louisville & N. R. Co., 116 Ky. 258, 75 S.W. 285; Cassidy v. Berkovitz, 169 Ky. 785, 185 S.W. 129 (failure of defendant to object to splitting cause of action during time plaintiff could have consolidated his cases was a waiver); Putthoff v. Walker, 213 Mo.App. 228, 248 S.W. 619; Fox v. Althorp, 40 Ohio St. 322 (...