Medley v. Webb
| Citation | 288 So.2d 846 |
| Decision Date | 21 January 1974 |
| Docket Number | No. 47360,47360 |
| Parties | Archie MEDLEY v. T. L. WEBB. |
| Court | United States State Supreme Court of Mississippi |
Ralph E. Pogue, Aberdeen, for appellant.
Mitchell, McNutt & Bush, Wade H. Lagrone, Tupelo, for appellee.
The facts involved in this case are carefully recorded in Medley v. Carter, 234 So.2d 334 (Miss.1970) and will not be repeated here. It is sufficient to say that the litigation here involved grew out of a multiple automobile accident.
One of the automobile drivers, Velmon Carter, filed suit against T. L. Webb, the driver of an automobile, who was in the process of crossing the travel lane occupied by Carter at the time of the accident, and Carter also sued Archie Gene Medley, the driver of a vehicle that ran into the wrecked automobile of T. L. Webb. Both defendants cross-sued Velmon Carter. Webb settled with Carter and was eliminated from the suit. The suit between Carter and Medley was submitted to a jury. The jury returned a verdict in favor of the cross-plaintiff, Archie Gene Medley, for four thousand two hundred twnety-two dollars ($4,222.00). The trial court set the verdict aside on the motion of Carter for a judgment notwithstanding and verdict. Medley appealed to this Court in the Medley v. Carter case above cited. This Court reinstated the Medley judgment. When the case was returned to the trial court, Carter paid Medley the amount of the judgment less two dollars ($2.00). The judgment was first satisfied, but later the Court permitted the clerk to correct this entry to say: 'Judgment lien extinguished by a special release to Velmon Carter only.'
Archie Gene Medley then filed suit against T. L. Webb alleging that he had been damaged in the sum of thirty-six thousand eight hundred ninety-two dollars and seventy-four cents ($36,892.74), and that Velmon Carter had paid four thousand two hundred twenty-two dollars ($4,222.00) of the damages due, but there still remained due him the sum of thirty- two thousand six hundred and seventy dollars and seventy-four cents ($32,670.74). He then charged that the negligence of the defendant, T. L. Webb, contributed to his injury and that he was entitled to recover the balance of his damages from T. L. Webb.
The defendant filed a plea in bar of the action in the form of a demurrer upon the ground that the plaintiff had received full payment for his damages growing out of the accident from velmon Carter. The trial court sustained the plea in bar and entered judgment dismissing the suit of Medley.
The issue here is whether or not the plaintiff received full satisfaction for his alleged damages in his suit and judgment against Velmon Carter, or was the plaintiff permitted to give credit for the amount paid by Carter on the amount alleged to have been his damages and to sue for the remainder against a joint tort-feasor?
The appellant cited Mississippi Code 1942 Annotated Section 335 (1956), which is now Mississippi Code Annotated Section 85-5-3 (1972) as the authority on which he bases his right to sue T. L. Webb. This section is in the following language:
'In any action founded on a joint or joint and several bond, covenant, bill of exchange, promissory note, or other contract, or on a contract or liability of copartners, it shall be lawful to sue any one or more of the parties liable on such bond, covenant, bill of exchange, promissory note, or other contract or liability; and separate suits may be brought against the representatives of such of the parties as have died, or joint suits may be brought against the representatives of the deceased party and those who are alive and bound therein; and the rendition of judgment against one or more joint or joint and several debtors shall not affect any right of the plaintiff as to the other parties, unless satisfaction has been obtained.'
Appellant then argues that the trial court wholly failed to recognize that it was the intention of the appellant and Velmon Carter that the payment of the judgment by Carter was a partial settlement of the claim for damages due to Medley.
The appellant has cited many cases based upon the theory that a plaintiff has the right to settle with one joint tort-feasor and to then sue the other joint tort-feasor for the damage due in excess of that paid by one joint tort-feasor. For example, see Lee v. Wiley Buntin Adjuster, Inc., 204 So.2d 479 (Miss.1967).
In Lee, supra, this Court was careful to point out that the record did not disclose any specific issue actually litigated in the compromised Alabama case, which was relitigated in the suit of Lee v. Wiley Buntin Adjuster, Inc., supra.
The issue as we see it is not that the plaintiff had a right to sue two joint tort-feasors for damages caused by them, or contributed to by them, (he had this right); nor is it an issue here that plaintiff had the right to settle and covenant not to sue one of the joint tort-feasors. The issue here is whether or not a judgment against one of the joint tort-feasors for all the damages found to be due the plaintiff by the jury is fully satisfied when the amount of the judgment is paid, although the party paying the judgment agrees that the plaintiff may sue another joint tort-feasor.
There can be but one satisfaction of the amount due the plaintiff for his damages. He cannot recover the...
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