Rosenstein v. Hynson

• Decision Date: 30 October 1929
• Docket Number: 7.
• Citation: 147 A. 529,157 Md. 626
• Parties: ROSENSTEIN v. HYNSON ET AL.
• Court: Maryland Court of Appeals

147 A. 529

157 Md. 626

ROSENSTEIN v. HYNSON ET AL.

No. 7.

Court of Appeals of Maryland

October 30, 1929

Appeal from Circuit Court, Anne Arundel County; Robert Moss, Judge.

Action by Jesse Rosenstein, trading as the National Piano Company against Carroll Hynson and another. From a judgment for the defendants, the plaintiff appeals. Affirmed.

Argued before BOND, C.J., and PATTISON, URNER, OFFUTT, DIGGES PARKE, and SLOAN, JJ.

Edwin T. Dickerson, of Baltimore (Robert E. Kindred, of Baltimore on the brief), for appellant.

George B. Woelfel, of Annapolis, for appellees.

URNER J.

This action of replevin was tried in the lower court upon an agreed statement to the following effect: On October 5, 1922 the plaintiff delivered to the defendants a player piano and accessories under a conditional contract of sale which reserved title in the plaintiff until full payment of the purchase price of $495, which was stipulated to be paid in installments of $10 at the time of delivery and $3 weekly for the ensuing period of 162 weeks. In August, 1927, the defendants having paid $294.49, and all of the remaining installments, aggregating $200.51, being then due, the plaintiff brought suit before a justice of the peace for $87.43 of the amount then owing under the contract, and recovered a judgment for the sum thus sued for, which the defendants paid. Because of their failure to pay the installments, amounting to $113.80, omitted from the claim on which the judgment was obtained, the plaintiff has sought to regain possession of the piano and equipment by the pending suit in replevin. The sole question to be determined is whether the recovery and collection of the judgment for part of the unpaid installments of the purchase price, when all were due and payable, is a legal bar to the effort of the plaintiff to repossess the property under the terms of the contract of sale. An affirmative answer to that question was given by the trial court in the form of an instruction granted at the request of the defendants. From the judgment entered on a verdict in their favor, the plaintiff has appealed.

In suing for a part only of the installments in arrears, when he was entitled to sue for all, the plaintiff disregarded the sound and settled rule that a fully accrued cause of action for the breach of a single contract must not be subdivided for the purposes of separate suits against the same party. The object of the rule is to protect a defendant from the vexations and burdens incident to a duplication or multiplication of actions to enforce a liability for which one suit would be sufficient. The consequence of a violation of the rule is that a judgment recovered for part of the accrued indebtedness sued for separately may be pleaded to a suit for the residue of the claim, which is treated as being merged in the recovery procured in the first litigation. Olmstead v. Bach, 78 Md. 132, 27 A. 501, 22 L. R. A 74, 44 Am. St. Rep. 273; Hippodrome Co. v. Lewis, 130 Md. 158, 100 A. 78; Keedy v. Long, 71 Md. 385, 18 A. 704, 5 L. R. A. 759; Kennedy v. New York, 196 N.Y. 19, 89 N.E. 360, 25 L. R. A. (N. S.) 847; Burritt v. Belfy, 47 Conn. 323, 36 Am. Rep. 79; Nickerson v....