Zadek v. Merchants' Bank of Mobile

• Decision Date: 14 May 1920
• Docket Number: 1 Div. 152
• Citation: 204 Ala. 396,85 So. 552
• Parties: ZADEK et al. v. MERCHANTS' BANK OF MOBILE et al.
• Court: Alabama Supreme Court

85 So. 552

204 Ala. 396

ZADEK et al. v. MERCHANTS' BANK OF MOBILE et al.

1 Div. 152

Supreme Court of Alabama

May 14, 1920

Rehearing Denied June 30, 1920

Appeal from Circuit Court, Mobile County; Claud A. Grayson, Judge.

Bill by Elizabeth G. Zadek and others against the Merchants' Bank of Mobile and others for an accounting and for discharge from further liability of complainants, to require respondents to deliver certain property and effects, and for other relief. From a decree sustaining demurrers to the bill, complainants appeal. Affirmed.

Frederick G. Bromberg, Sullivan & Stallworth and Gaillard, Mahorner &amp Arnold, all of Mobile, for appellants.

Smiths Young & Leigh, of Mobile, for appellees.

McCLELLAN J.

This is the second appeal in this cause. Merchants' Bank et al. v. Elizabeth G. Zadek, 84 So. 715

An ample statement of the facts was made in the opinion delivered on former appeal. So far as presently pertinent the general nature and objects of the amended bill and of the crossbills are the same as they were before their amendment. After reversal, on December 23, 1919, the original bill was amended by adding the E.O. Zadek Jewelry Company as a party respondent; but no relief against that company was prayed in the amended original bill. The court below sustained the demurrers of the Merchants' and the First National Banks to the amended bill, containing grounds taking the objection that it was multifarious. The bill as amended by the addition of the jewelry company as a party respondent still embodies the effort to redress wrongs against the individual complainants and wrongs against the E.O. Zadek Jewelry Company, the corporation. In the former opinion it was held that the bill contained equity in so far as it sought redress of wrongs to the individual complainants and to enforce their individual rights in the premises. There was no ground in the demurrers then under review that took the objection that the bill was multifarious. This court, however, noting this possible objection, mooted its presence, and in the two statements pertinent to that matter so guarded the opinion's pronouncement and effect as expressly to disavow any intent to justify the joinder in one bill of causes of complaint by the individual complainants with causes of complaint that--unless excused by circumstances that would bring the cause within the doctrine of Howze v. Harrison, 165 Ala. 150, 51 So. 614, among many others--could be asserted alone by the corporation, the jewelry company. The court did not, on former appeal, decide the question for the obvious reason that it was not raised by the demurrers to the...