Craft Refrigerating Mach. Co. v. Quinnipiac Brewing Co.

• Decision Date: 13 December 1893
• Citation: 63 Conn. 551,29 A. 76
• Court: Connecticut Supreme Court
• Parties: CRAFT REFRIGERATING MACH. CO. v. QUINNIPIAC BREWING CO.

29 A. 76

63 Conn. 551

CRAFT REFRIGERATING MACH. CO.

v. QUINNIPIAC BREWING CO.

Supreme Court of Errors of Connecticut.

Dec. 13, 1893.

Appeal from superior court New Haven county; George W. Wheeler, Judge.

Action by the Craft Refrigerating Machine Company against the Quinnipiac Brewing Company to recover damages for breach of a contract of sale of refrigerating machines by plaintiff to defendant, and for conversion of such machines. From a judgment of nonsuit, plaintiff appeals. Affirmed.

The complaint alleged, in substance, that plaintiff sold and delivered to defendant two refrigerating, machines at a certain agreed price; that the latter claimed the machines did not comply with the contract, and directed plaintiff to remove them; that plaintiff agreed to take them back, and sent for them; and that defendant forcibly prevented it from taking the machines, and continued to use them as its own property, and thereby converted them. Defendant answered specially, and filed a counterclaim for damages for breach of the contract to furnish machines of a certain capacity. On the trial, defendant objected to the introduction of evidence of the market price of the machines on the ground that plaintiff had put in evidence of the contract, and of performance thereof on its part; that there was no allegation of the market value of the machines, and that evidence of the alleged conversion and of the market value was not admissible. Thereupon, the court required plaintiff to elect on which cause of action it would proceed, on the ground that the two causes of action—one on contract, and the other sounding in tort—could not be stated in a single count. Plaintiff refused to make such election, and a judgment of nonsuit was entered.

Henry Stoddard and John W. Bristol, for appellant. William C. Case, William H. Ely, and Edmund Zacher, for appellee.

BALDWIN, J. Complaints, under the practice act, are to "contain a statement of the facts constituting the cause of action." Gen. St. § 872. This is to be "a plain and concise statement of the material facts on which the pleader relies." Id. § 880. "Acts and contracts may be stated according to their legal effect" (Practice Book, p. 14, rule 3, § 1), and "the plaintiff may claim alternative relief, based upon an alternative construction of his cause of action" (Id. p. 13, rule 2, § 9). Several causes of action may be united in the same complaint if all are "upon claims, whether in contract or tort or both, arising out of the same transaction or transactions connected with the same subject of action; but they must be separately stated," and "if it appear to the court that they cannot all be conveniently heard together, the court may order separate trials of any such causes of action, or may direct that any one or more of them be expunged from the complaint." Gen. St. § 878. "Transactions connected with the same subject of action may include any transactions which grow out of the subject-matter in regard to which the controversy has arisen; as, for instance, the failure of a bailee to use the goods bailed for the purpose agreed, and also an injury to them by his fault or neglect." Practice Book, p. 15, rule 3, § 7. Where separate and distinct causes of action (as distinguished from separate and distinct claims for relief, founded on the same cause of action or transaction) are joined, "the complaint is to be divided into separate counts." Id. p. 12, rule 2, § 4. Any exception for misjoinder of causes of action, whether in the same or separate counts, must be taken by demurrer, and, if not so taken, will be deemed to be waived. Id. p. 17, rule 4, § 13. These various statutory provisions and rules of court are all designed to enable the plaintiff to state his grievance to the court, untrammeled by artificial forms of pleading, and regardless of most of the ancient distinctions of procedure as to law and equity, or contract and tort. There is no attempt to bring the parties to issue upon some "single, certain, and material point." Each paragraph of the complaint is to contain "as nearly as may be a separate allegation" (Gen. St. § 880), and it is declared that "the denial of any material allegation shall constitute an issue of fact" (Practice Book, p. 17, rule 4, § 12). If, in any case, so many of these issues are formed that the court fears the jury cannot properly dispose of all at one hearing, it "may order that one or more of the issues joined be tried before the others." Gen. St. § 1032. And, if the issues made up by the parties are indefinite or indecisive, the court may direct them "to prepare other issues, and such issues shall, if the parties differ, be settled by the court." Id. § 880.

The plaintiff's complaint sets forth two causes of action, stating them in separate paragraphs, but not in separate counts. One cause of action is for breach of a contract to take, and pay for, two refrigerating machines, at an agreed price. The other cause of action is for a conversion of the machines. It was proper to join these different causes of action in one complaint, either if both arose out of the same transaction, or if, while one arose out of one transaction, and the other out of another, both these transactions were "connected with the same subject of action." A transaction is something which has been transacted, that is, acted out to the end. This notion of completed action strongly characterizes the word in the Latin language, from which, through the Normans, we have derived it, although we gain little assistance otherwise from these sources in determining its meaning, since both the Romans and the French have used it mainly as a juridical term to signify an agreement of parties in settlement of differences. Dig. II. 15, "De Transactionibus;" Civil Code of France, art. 2044. As the word is employed in American codes of pleading and in our own practice act, a "transaction" is something which has taken place, whereby a cause of action has arisen. It must therefore consist of an act or agreement, or several acts or agreements having some connection with each other, in which more than one person is concerned, and by which the legal relations of such persons between themselves are altered. The transaction between the parties to the present action began when they made the contract for the manufacture and sale of the two machines. Then followed the delivery of the machines, the refusal to accept them, the attempt of the plaintiff to retake them, the forcible prevention of their removal, and the subsequent continuance of their use in the defendant's business. Without taking each and all of these events into consideration, the legal relations of the parties could not be fully determined. From the delivery of the machines to the commencement of the action, they had remained continuously in the defendant's possession. It had simply dealt with them in a different way at different times. The practice act is to be "favorably and liberally construed as a remedial statute." Practice Book, p. 21, rule 9, § 4. It has taken the word "transaction," not out of any legal vocabulary of technical terms, but from the common speech of men. So far as we are aware, it has never been the subject of any exact judicial definition. It is therefore to be construed as men commonly understand it, when applied, as in our practice act it certainly is applied (Gen. St. § 878), to any dealings between the parties resulting in wrongs, without regard to whether the wrong be done by violence, neglect, or breach of contract. It seems to us hardly to be doubted that any ordinary man would consider everything stated in the complaint as properly belonging to a narrative of the whole transaction between the parties, and necessary for the information of one who was to form a judgment as to their respective rights. That a broader meaning should be given to the term "transaction" than it has received in some of the courts of our sister states is plain from the provision in the Practice Book (page 13, rule 2, § 7) that "where several torts are committed simultaneously against the plaintiff (as a battery accompanied by slanderous words) they may be joined as causes of action arising out of the same transaction, notwithstanding they may belong to different classes of actions." This was the deliberate adoption of a view of the meaning of the word in question which had been previously disapproved in New York, as well as by Judge Bliss in his treatise on Code Pleading (section 125), though accepted in Kansas. Anderson v. Hill, 53 Barb. 238, 245; Harris v. Avery, 5 Kan. 146. It follows that both the causes of action declared on were properly united in one complaint. The same result would also be reached if what we have viewed as one transaction could be regarded as consisting of several transactions, since such would all be connected with the same subject of action; that is, the two machines, and the title to them.

The plaintiff had a right to declare in separate counts. Bassett v. Shares, 63 Conn. 39, 41, 27 Atl. 421; Practice Book, p. 37, form 30. We think, however, that it had an equal right to use but one. While two causes of action were set up as the basis of its right to damages, there was really but one on which a recovery was claimed. The plaintiff was not seeking to be paid twice for its machines. If they conformed to the contract, or if, though not conformable to it, the defendant, after full opportunity for examination, had finally accepted them under the contract, it was liable for the contract price. If the defendant, on the other hand, had rightfully refused to accept them under the contract, and the plaintiff had acquiesced in such refusal, but had been forcibly prevented from taking them back, and the defendant had afterwards used them as its own, it would be liable for their value as on a conversion. The measure of the damages would differ according to the true construction of the plaintiff's cause of action....