Michener v. Springfield Engine & Thresher Company

• Decision Date: 26 April 1895
• Docket Number: 17,325
• Citation: 40 N.E. 679,142 Ind. 130
• Parties: Michener et al. v. The Springfield Engine and Thresher Company et al
• Court: Indiana Supreme Court

40 N.E. 679

142 Ind. 130

Michener et al. v. The Springfield Engine and Thresher Company et al

No. 17,325

Supreme Court of Indiana

April 26, 1895

Petition for Rehearing Overruled September 26, 1895.

From the Howard Circuit Court.

The judgment is reversed, and the cause remanded, with instructions to overrule appellees' motion to dismiss and sustain the demurrer to the complaint with leave to the plaintiff to amend his complaint if he so desires.

Bell & Purdum, C. P. Pollard and Morrison & Holman, for appellants.

Blacklidge Shirley & Moon, for appellees.

OPINION

McCabe, C. J.

The appellant, James B. Michener, brought this suit against The Springfield Engine and Thresher Company, and Edgar A Simmons, sheriff of Howard county, concluding with a prayer to enjoin an execution and judgment against him, and for all just and proper relief and for satisfaction thereof. It appears from the complaint that John H. Kennedy, Benjamin E. Hockstedler and Christian Kly, as principals, on December 1, 1888, executed three several promissory notes, to the appellee company, amounting in the aggregate to $ 415.00 in consideration of a sale to them by said company of a separator engine and thresher of its manufacture; that after the execution of said notes, appellant, Michener, wrote his name across the back of each as accommodation guarantor or indorser thereon; that after the maturity of the $ 140.00 note, it was paid by said principals; that afterwards, the next note falling due, calling for $ 137.50, said payee brought suit on both of the unpaid notes against the principals and appellant, as indorser, and on July 12, 1890, appellant was defaulted and judgment was rendered thereon against him for $ 339.08, and costs taxed at $ 21.90; that said judgment against him was based exclusively on his said indorsement of said notes; that Kennedy, Hockstedler and Kly appeared and thereafter made defense to said action, and at the March term of said court, for 1892, upon the issues duly formed between them and said company, a trial thereof resulted in a verdict and judgment in their favor, namely, that the consideration of said notes had wholly failed, and that said plaintiff company take nothing by their suit, and that said defendants recover their cost; that notwithstanding the full discharge of said principals, by said judgment, which remains in full force, the said company is trying to collect said judgment against the appellant, and to that end caused an execution to issue thereon for the aforesaid amount thereof, and the aforesaid amount of costs, less a credit of $ 70.00, and placed the same in the hands of the sheriff of said county, Edgar A. Simmons, made a defendant in the complaint, which he still holds and threatens to levy on the property of appellant and to sell the same to satisfy said writ. The court overruled appellee's demurrer to the complaint, the demurrer being based on the ground of the alleged insufficiency of the facts in the complaint to constitute a cause of action. Appellees call in question this ruling by assigning cross-error thereon.

The appellee company moved the court to dismiss the cause for want of jurisdiction, which motion the court sustained and dismissed the cause for want of jurisdiction. This ruling is questioned by the assignment of errors by the appellant.

The ground upon which the learned counsel for appellees seek to support the action of the trial court is that this being an application to a court of equity for the extraordinary relief by the way of injunction, it has no jurisdiction of the cause, because the plaintiff had a plain and adequate remedy at law, and that he had such remedy at law; they cite, Ross v. Banta, 140 Ind. 120, 34 N.E. 865.

It was there held that a judgment by which the party recovering it had secured an unfair advantage, and wherever by accident, mistake, fraud, or otherwise, an unfair advantage has been obtained in the proceedings at law, and it is against conscience to make use of such advantage, a court of equity will restrain the party from making use of the same; and after judgment any facts which prove it to be against conscience to execute such judgment and of which the injured party could not avail himself in defense of the suit, will authorize the court to interfere by injunction, and restrain the party from enforcing the judgment. But we held in that case that the facts which gave rise to the appellant's right to relief occurring after the rendition of the judgment against him constituted material new matter under our code, authorizing a review, though it would not have authorized a review prior to the code. And that the remedy of review of a judgment at law authorized by the code was a remedy at law and was adequate and therefore denied the relief by injunction.

It is therefore contended by the appellee company that the discharge of the principals on the trial after the judgment against the surety were facts occurring after the judgment against the surety, constituting "material new matter discovered since the rendition of the judgment," and hence that entitled appellant to the remedy of review, excluding him from the right to the extraordinary remedy by injunction.

This contention granted would by no means justify the assumption that the trial court had no jurisdiction, and rightly dismissed the cause for want thereof. When the two jurisdictions of law and equity were separate, it might under that system, when the plaintiff's cause of action stated by him in a court of equity, was of such a nature as that it fell within the exclusive jurisdiction of a court of law, the court of equity had no jurisdiction of the subject-matter and it could take no other action in the matter than to dismiss the cause for want of jurisdiction. This was so because courts of equity had no other powers than equity powers. Not so in our reformed system of procedure. Not only does the same judge under that system exercise both law and equity powers, but he exercises both legal and equitable jurisdiction and administers both legal and equitable relief in each case, when the facts pleaded and proved warrant it. How then can the cause be dismissed for want of jurisdiction merely because the plaintiff asks for equitable relief, while the facts show that he is entitled to legal relief? The court being clothed by the code with power and jurisdiction to administer both, or either legal or equitable relief in the same case, its jurisdiction is not and cannot be defeated by it appearing from the facts stated that the equitable relief sought cannot be awarded because such facts show that the only relief...