McLendon v. Pass

• Decision Date: 14 January 1889
• Citation: 5 So. 234,66 Miss. 110
• Court: Mississippi Supreme Court
• Parties: WM. L. AND R. R. MCLENDON v. W. N. PASS

5 So. 234

66 Miss. 110

WM. L. AND R. R. MCLENDON v. W. N. PASS

Supreme Court of Mississippi

January 14, 1889

APPEAL from the circuit court of Grenada county. HON. C. H CAMPBELL, Judge.

The facts appear in the opinion of the court.

Judgment reversed and cause remanded.

A. H Whitfield, for appellants, contended that the two suits were independent of each other, arising out of two separate contracts, made at different times, and the case of Pittman v. Chrisman, 59 Miss. 124, and cases cited therein, are conclusive of the right to maintain separate suits.

J. C Longstreet, for appellee.

The facts disclose a manifest attempt to evade the rule against the division of claims, the multiplicity of suits, and the unnecessary accumulation of costs; also an effort to gain a speedier trial than the proper proceeding would have allowed.

The suits are in favor of the same plaintiff, against the same defendant, brought in the same court, and at the same time. If Pass, the merchant, is liable at all to plaintiff, his liability is an entire one, and grows out of his purchase of the cotton on which plaintiffs had a lien. There is no privity between Pass and the appellants, and he was not a party to any of the contracts with the tenant. The demand of plaintiffs was indivisible, and two separate suits violated the rule repeatedly declared in this court, from Ash v. Lee, 51 Miss. 101, to the time of the last decision on the subject.

OPINION

COOPER, J.

The appellants brought two suits against the appellee before a justice of the peace. In each case the sum demanded was less than one hundred and fifty dollars, but the sum of both exceeded that amount. The justice dismissed both suits for want of jurisdiction, and the plaintiffs having appealed to the circuit court, like judgments were rendered, from which this appeal is taken. The agreed facts are that plaintiffs rented to one Rook a certain farm for the year 1885, at the sum of one hundred dollars, and that the tenant failed to pay the rent, but sold the crops raised on the demised premises to the defendant, Pass. For the year 1886 a separate, but like, contract was made, and the tenant again failed to pay the rent, and sold the crops of that year to Pass. One suit is to recover the value of the crops sold in 1885, and the other for that of the year 1886. Both suits were instituted on the same day. The court below proceeded on the theory that the plaintiffs had split a single cause of action, and since the justice would not have had jurisdiction over one suit for the whole claim, he...