Newell v. Illinois Central R. Co.

• Decision Date: 17 November 1913
• Court: Mississippi Supreme Court
• Parties: MARY NEWELL et al. v. ILLINOIS CENTRAL R. CO

63 So. 351

106 Miss. 182

MARY NEWELL et al. v. ILLINOIS CENTRAL R. CO

Supreme Court of Mississippi

November 17, 1913

October 1913

APPEAL from the chancery court of Attala county, HON. J. F. MCCOOL Chancellor.

Bill by the Illinois Central Railroad Company against Mary Newell and others. From a decree for complainant, defendants appeal.

The facts are fully stated in the opinion of the court.

Reversed, and bill dismissed.

Flowers Alexander & Whitfield, J. S. Smythe and S. S. Dodd, for appellants.

We do not understand that anything is left to be decided in this case by the decision of this court in the cases of Newton Oil & Manufacturing Company v. Sessums, et al., 59 So 9; and Cumberland Tel. & Tel. Co. v. Williamson, 57 So. 559.

The trouble has all been over the Tribett case, 70 Miss. 182. There numerous persons whose property had been damaged by fire from sparks emitted by a locomotive of the Illinois Central Railroad Company severally sued in the circuit court for damages. The railroad company enjoined the prosecution of these suits on the ground that they were based upon the same law and the same facts and equity jurisdiction was invoked to prevent multiplicity of suits.

Chief Justice Campbell held that the bill could not be maintained. The facts might be the same in all the cases; it might be necessary to introduce the same witnesses in all the cases; the laws, by which the issues were to be tried, might be the same in all the cases; but there was no community of interest in the subject-matter of the litigation. No individual plaintiff had any interest in what any other plaintiff might receive; there was no common fund to be created nor to be proceeded against; and there was no ground of equity cognizance in any case taken by itself. One could not sue for the benefit of all; all could not have joined in the same suit originally; the rights of action though similar, were wholly independent each of the others. Judge CAMPBELL held close to the well-established rule that: "There must be some recognized ground of equitable interference, or some community of interest in the subject-matter of the controversy, or a common right or title involved, to warrant the joinder of all in one suit; or there must be some common purpose in pursuit of a common adversary, where each may resort to equity, in order to be joined in one suit."

Our court overruled this case and then went back to it. The decision was out of service at the time the injunction was granted in the case at bar and at the time it was tried in the lower court. It has since been reinstated, re-animated. It was discredited in Railroad Company v. Garison, 81 Miss. 257, 32 So. 996; in Crawford v. Railroad Co., 83 Miss. 708, 36 So. 82; in Thomas v. Mangum, 87 Miss. 575, 40 So. 327; and especially in Whitlock v. Y. & M. V. R. R. Co., 91 Miss. 779, 45 So. 861. And in the case of Railroad Co. v. Barnes, 94 Miss. 484, 48 So. 823, the Tribbette case is declared to be overruled by the decisions in the cases above cited and in Tisdale v. Fire Insurance Co., 84 Miss. 709, 36 So. 568.

The cases decided subsequent to the Tribett case and which go counter to it and at last expressly overruled it, uphold equity jurisdiction to prevent a multiplicity of suits even where this is the only ground of equity jurisdiction that can be claimed. Under this doctrine a court of equity could get jurisdiction on the simple ground that there are many suits. It could not take cognizance of one of them alone; its jurisdiction attached by virtue of the number. It has been urged that economy of time and expense justified the intervention of the chancery court; that the chancery court afforded a better remedy in that the several cases could be tried at one time in that forum whereas they would have to be tried one at a time in the law court; that one lawsuit could be thus substituted for many.

The most striking use of the new doctrine is found in the Whitlock case; a no more striking instance, however, than this now before the court. In the Whitlock case, numerous persons went on an excursion and there was a bridge washed away and great delay, inconvenient and trouble happened to the passengers. About forty-nine of them sued in the circuit court, and the parties and their attorneys, were enjoined and the injunction was sustained by this court. They were suits in tort; they were for unliquidated damages and the claims were wholly independent each of all others. The court that sustained the injunctions in the Whitlock case would also have sustained it in the Tribett case. The two could not possibly stand together. If the opinion in one case announced the law, the opinion in the other did not declare the law.

Mayes & Mayes, for appellees.

The first question to be considered by this court is, did the chancery court have power to enjoin the prosecution of these ten suits in the law court and to assume jurisdiction of them and to consolidate them to avoid...