Twitchell v. Glenwood-Inglewood Company
| Decision Date | 17 December 1915 |
| Docket Number | 19,452 - (112) |
| Parties | CLARA S. TWITCHELL v. GLENWOOD-INGLEWOOD COMPANY AND ANOTHER |
| Court | Minnesota Supreme Court |
Action in the district court for Hennepin county against Leonard Nelson, James F. Cummings and the Glenwood-Inglewood Company to recover $25,000. The case was tried before Fish, J., who when plaintiff rested denied the motions of defendants to dismiss the action, and a jury which returned a verdict for $3,000. Separate motions of the defendants for judgment notwithstanding the verdict or for a new trial were denied. From the order denying the motions, defendant Cummings and defendant company appealed. Affirmed.
Action -- joint and several liability.
1. Where a single injury is suffered in consequence of the wrongful acts of several persons, all who contribute directly to cause the injury, though there was no conspiracy or joint concert of action between them, are jointly or severally liable.
Contract -- interference by third person.
2. Actual or implied malice is an essential element to the right of action for the wrongful interference by a third person with the contract relations between others.
Contract -- presumption.
3. When the person so interfering in such relations, causing a breach of the contract, has knowledge of facts which, if pursued by reasonable inquiry, will disclose such relations, and the rights of the parties in respect thereto, and he fails to make the inquiry, the law will presume knowledge thereof precisely as though he made the inquiry and impute to him bad faith.
Contract -- actual malice.
4. In such case a showing of actual notice is unnecessary.
Damages.
5. In an action for the wrongful interference with a contract extending over the period of ten years, in the form of a lease of property, plaintiff is entitled to recover all damages suffered, both present and prospective, in one action, for successive actions cannot be maintained.
Exclusion of evidence.
6. Evidence tending to show a temporary impairment of the business covered by the contract wrongfully interfered with existing at the time of the wrongful interference, held properly excluded.
Measure of damages.
7. The instructions of the trial court correctly gave to the jury the proper rule of damages.
No error.
8. The record presents no reversible error.
McDowell & Fosseen and A. E. Helmick, for appellants.
Selover Schultz & Selover, for respondent.
The facts in this case are substantially as follows: Plaintiff had established a business of selling and delivering to patrons spring water taken from a well located upon land owned by her and the same had been conducted for several years. The business was not large, but well established and fairly remunerative. In October, 1910, she transferred the business, and sold certain personal property used in conducting the same, namely, horses, wagons and facilities for carting and delivering water to customers, to Anderson and Nelson. The consideration of the sale and transfer was a lease executed by Anderson and Nelson, under and by which they contracted and agreed to conduct and carry on the water business as theretofore carried on by plaintiff, for and during a period of ten years; to deliver such water to the trade as theretofore established; to use their best efforts to increase and enlarge the same, and to pay to plaintiff the sum of $100 per month as rent. To secure the performance of the terms of the lease, as well as the payment of the purchase price of the personal property, Anderson and Nelson executed to plaintiff a certain chattel mortgage covering said property, conditioned for the payment of the agreed price thereof, "according to the conditions of a written instrument or agreement for leasing, a copy of which is made a part" thereof, and in all and every respect to comply with the conditions of said lease. A subsequent chattel mortgage executed by Anderson and Nelson, on August 1, 1911, made some changes in the payments of rent, but the purpose of the original mortgage was continued; that purpose being to secure the payment of the rent provided for, and to obligate the mortgagors to keep and perform the terms and provisions of the leasing agreement. The lease contained a provision to the effect that the lessees should not assign the same, or sublet the premises, or dispose of the business without first obtaining the written consent of plaintiff, and that they, the lessees, should keep and maintain the premises in good sanitary condition.
The lessees entered into possession of the property and continued thereafter to conduct the business so transferred to them. In January, 1912, defendant Cummings, who had a lease from plaintiff under which he was authorized to take and remove sand from the land adjacent to the well, set up a claim that his lease included the well, but his claim was unfounded and without merit. Twitchell v. Cummings, 123 Minn. 270, 143 N.W. 785. Cummings was particularly aggressive in the assertion of his claim. He purchased the interest of Anderson, but sold out to one Nimmerfroh ten days later. Some time in February, 1912, he offered to sell the business to defendant Glenwood-Inglewood Company, a corporation engaged in the same territory in the same line of business. The company declined to buy at the time, but on July 2, 1912, did purchase the business from Nelson and Nimmerfroh, and a complete sale and transfer of the property and the business was then made to it, Nelson, at the same time and as a part of the transaction, entering into the employ of the company as a salesman. He continued thereafter, as the agent of the company, to sell and deliver water to his former customers, and those secured by plaintiff when she had charge of the business. He informed such customers of the change in proprietorship, and solicited them to continue to take water from the new company, and he was generally successful. With this transfer to the Inglewood company the business leased to Anderson and Nelson was abandoned, and the contract evidenced by the lease and chattel mortgage broken and violated, though the well from which water was taken was not transferred to that company. Plaintiff brought this action against the three defendants, on the theory and claim that their acts and conduct in procuring and bringing about the violation of the contract by Anderson and Nelson were wrongful and unlawful, vesting in plaintiff a cause of action for the wrong. Plaintiff had a verdict, and defendants Cummings and Glenwood-Inglewood Company appealed from orders denying their separate motions for judgment or a new trial.
While appellants moved separately for a new trial, and present separate assignments of error and independent argument in support thereof, the leading questions raised are common to both, and will be considered together. It is urged that the evidence wholly fails to show a conspiracy or joint concert of action on the part of defendants to cause Anderson and Nelson to break the contract with plaintiff, and for this failure of proof that the court erred in denying a motion to dismiss the action, and also erred in instructing the jury that the record of the chattel mortgage and lease was sufficient notice to appellants of plaintiff's rights; sufficient to charge them with wrongful interference with plaintiff's contract relations, and in charging that actual notice was not necessary.
The cause was before the court on a former appeal (126 Minn. 423, 148 N.W. 451, 601), where it was held, following the authorities there cited, that a wrongful interference with the contract relations of others, causing a breach thereof, is an actionable tort; and, further, that the evidence then before the court was sufficient to justify a finding that Cummings and Glenwood-Inglewood Company, acting in concert, and with knowledge of plaintiff's contract rights wrongfully interfered and caused a breach of the contract by Nelson. We follow and apply that decision and come directly to the questions presented on this appeal.
The action sounds in tort, and the first question above stated involves the inquiry whether, to entitle plaintiff to recover, it was incumbent upon her to show a conspiracy or joint concert of action by defendants. This question was not considered or decided on the former appeal, but it is now urged as one of the principal issues in the case. We may remark in passing that, if such joint concert of action is essential to plaintiff's right of recovery, the evidence presented in the record is not conclusive thereon, and the issue should have been submitted to the jury. We hold however, that the question whether joint concert of action is necessary should be answered adversely to defendants' contention. If the acts and things done by the defendants, though they were acting independently of each other, were wrongful and an unlawful interference with the relations between plaintiff and her lessee, and concurred in bringing about the specific injury complained of, namely, the breach of the contract and destruction of the plaintiff's water business, they are jointly and severally liable, though there was no conspiracy or joint concert of action between them. It was held in Virtue v. Creamery Package Mnfg. Co. 123 Minn. 17, 40, 142 N.W. 930, 1136, L.R.A. 1915B, 1179, 1195, Mr. Justice Hallam speaking for the court, that all tort feasors are jointly or severally liable "even though they act independently and without concert of action, * * * provided their several acts concur in tending to produce one resulting event." Such was the effect and result of the acts committed by both appellants in the case at bar; the acts of each tended to and did in fact bring about the breach...
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