Goodroe v. Warehouse

• Decision Date: 18 January 1938
• Docket Number: No. 12044.,12044.
• Citation: 185 Ga. 399,195 S.E. 199
• Parties: GOODROE et al. v. C. L. C. THOMAS WAREHOUSE.
• Court: Georgia Supreme Court

185 Ga. 399

195 S.E. 199

GOODROE et al.

v.C. L. C. THOMAS WAREHOUSE.

No. 12044.

Supreme Court of Georgia.

Jan. 18, 1938.

Syllabus by Editorial Staff.

Error from Superior Court, Carroll County; L. B. Wyatt, Judge.

Suit in equity by C. L. C. Thomas Warehouse against the Whitesburg Manufacturing Company, its individual partners, Dobbs and Goodroe, and against Harry Sunshine and Samuel Uram, for injunction, general relief, and judgment for breach of contract. To review a judgment overruling their demurrers to the petition, defendants bring error.

Affirmed.

C. L. C. Thomas Warehouse brought suit in equity against Whitesburg Manufacturing Company, its individual partners, Dobbs and Goodroe, and against Harry Sunshine and Samuel Uram. The petition alleged that the defendant company and its partners were indebted to the plaintiff in a stated sum, as loss sustained under contracts made between the plaintiff and that company for the sale of certain merchandise, copies of the contracts being attached; that the defendant company breached the contracts by refusing to take or accept the merchandise after having purchased it; the suit being "brought for damages suffered on account of loss in the difference of the contract price and the market price of said material at the time of the breach of said contract by said defendants." It further alleged certain fraudulent transfers and attempted transfers between the partners of the Whitesburg Company, covering all of its property, and the transfer by that transferee of all this property to defendants Sunshine and Uram, who were organizing a corporation to take over the same, and that all these transactions were for the purpose of defrauding creditors, among them petitioner. The prayers were for injunction against any change in the status or assets of the Whitesburg Manufacturing Company; for general relief; and for judgment against the company and the partners "for the aforesaid principal sum, together with interest thereon at the rate of 8% per annum from May 18, 1937."

Whitesburg Manufacturing Company, C. D. Goodroe, and J. Barrett Dobbs demurred on the grounds that no* valid and legal cause of action is set out; that there is no equity in the suit on its face, and the plaintiff has an adequate remedy at law; that the suit should be dismissed because it fails to make clear whether the plaintiff is proceeding for actual damages sustained by reason of plaintiff's purchase of cardstrips to fill the contract and the defendant's failure to take them, or whether it is based upon anticipated profits lost by the plaintiff by reason of the defendant's failure to order out said card strips, as provided in the contract; and that the contract shows on its face that the time limit for the purchase and acceptance of the card strips has not expired, and the suit based upon the alleged breach is without a basis upon which to stand.

Sunshine and Uram demurred as follows: That the suit should be dismissed as against them for the following reasons: It showed no equity, and the plaintiff has an adequate and complete remedy at law; there is a misjoinder of parties defendant; the petition is multifarious; there is a misjoinder of causes of...