Phillips v. Catts

• Decision Date: 03 November 1921
• Docket Number: 6 Div. 296.
• Citation: 206 Ala. 594,91 So. 579
• Parties: PHILLIPS ET AL. v. CATTS.
• Court: Alabama Supreme Court

91 So. 579

206 Ala. 594

PHILLIPS ET AL. v. CATTS.

6 Div. 296.

Supreme Court of Alabama

November 3, 1921

Appeal from Circuit Court, Walker County; J. J. Curtis, Judge.

Bill by Samuel W. Catts against E. Jack Phillips and others to recover royalty under contract. Decree for complainant, and respondents appeal. Reversed, rendered, and remanded.

L. D Gray and A. F. Fite, both of Jasper, for appellants.

Ray &amp Cooner, of Jasper, for appellee.

SOMERVILLE J.

Construing the bill of complaint as favorably to complainant as its allegations will reasonably permit, it shows no more than this, viz.: Complainant was employed by respondent Phillips to assist him in securing a lessee for the mining of Phillips' coal land; complainant to receive as compensation for his services in that behalf a royalty of one cent per ton on all coal mined under the lease so made. Complainant aided in procuring the respondent Dilworth as such lessee. Dilworth has mined many thousand tons of coal and is now mining it at the rate of about 200 tons a day. Complainant is entitled to be paid one cent, as stipulated for every ton so mined; and Phillips and Dilworth have refused either to pay him dues, or to recognize his right to be paid.

From these showings of the bill it must be concluded that Phillips is the simple debtor of complainant for the amount stipulated; that complainant has no specific interest in the royalty due from Dilworth to Phillips; and that Dilworth is under no obligation to pay anything to complainant.

"In the absence of a statute or an agreement between the parties, the landlord has no lien for rent under a mining lease." 27 Cyc. 716 (vii); Etowah Mining Co. v. Wills Valley M. & M. Co., 143 Ala. 623, 39 So. 336.

A fortiori the complainant in this case can claim no lien of any sort under the same conditions.

It is not alleged that Phillips is insolvent, nor that a judgment against him at law would be unfruitful. No discovery is sought, nor are any facts alleged as a basis for that relief.

The equity of the bill must therefore be rested solely upon the ground that the remedy at law is inadequate because the recovery of the royalty as it accrued would require a multiplicity of suits.

"It has been stated by this court that it has never undertaken to define the jurisdiction of equity to prevent a multiplicity of suits, nor even to lay down the general principles governing the several categories of cases in which that jurisdiction may be invoked, but this court has evinced an inclination toward confining this jurisdiction to a narrow field, in order to conserve and preserve the right of trial by jury. Turner v. Mobile, 135 Ala. 124, 33 So. 132, and cases there cited. Bills of this character are called bills in the nature of bills of peace, to quiet the rights of parties and to put an end to further litigation." Roanoke Guano Co. v. Saunders, 173 Ala. 347, 349, 56 So. 198, 199, 35 L. R. A. (N. S.) 491.

In general, where equitable jurisdiction is invoked to enforce a right of purely legal cognizance:

"The bill *** must aver facts which show the legal remedies to be inadequate. This may be done by alleging facts which show that the wrong is destructive of the substance of the estate, or that the damages [or claims] are incapable of ascertainment in a court of law, *** or that the defendant is insolvent and cannot be made to respond in damages, or that the wrong is vexatiously persisted in, in spite of repeated verdicts, and that to redress it in courts of law would require a multiplicity of actions at law, or probably other reasons not enumerated above." (Italics supplied.) Cullman, etc., Co. v. Hitt Lumber Co., 201 Ala. 150, 77 So. 574, 581.

In the text of Corpus Juris the rule is thus stated:

"At first it was

...