Halliday v. Bank of Stewart County

58 S.E. 169, 128 Ga. 639, 1907 Ga. LEXIS 181
CourtSupreme Court of Georgia
DecidedJuly 11, 1907
StatusPublished
Cited by10 cases

This text of 58 S.E. 169 (Halliday v. Bank of Stewart County) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Georgia primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Halliday v. Bank of Stewart County, 58 S.E. 169, 128 Ga. 639, 1907 Ga. LEXIS 181 (Ga. 1907).

Opinion

Fish, C. J.

(After stating the facts.)

1. One ground of the motion for a new trial was, that the court erred in admitting in evidence the record of the trover suit, over the objections urged by plaintiff against its admission. -It is contended by counsel for defendant -in error that objection to the introduction of this evidence came too late, as the record offered was “exactly the same” as that “annexed to the plea of res adjudícala as an exhibit and by reference made a part thereof,” and that, so far as the record of the present case discloses, there was no demurrer to this plea. As seen in the statement of facts, one objection urged to the admission of the record of the trover case [647]*647was that it showed upon its face that the subject-matter of the case at bar could not have been litigated in that case. This objection did not come too late. “Objection to a plea insufficient in law may be made by a motion to strike the plea; and this practice is to be commended. But the same result may be accomplished by objection to evidence which is offered in support of the plea.” Walden v. Walden, 124 Ga. 145; Crew v. Hutcheson, 115 Ga. 511; Kelly v. Strouse, 116 Ga. 872.

2. The objection to the introduction of the record of the former suit, upon the above stated ground, was well taken. It is ¿fear that the matter in controversy in the case on1 trial could not have been litigated under the plaintiff’s pleadings in the former suit. The former suit was in trover for the recovery of 233 described bales of cotton. The present action was brought for money had and received by defendant to plaintiff’s use. From the answer of defendant in the immediate case, it appeared that defendant had received the money sued for, as the proceeds of 15 bales of cotton which it had collected on certain rent notes, payable in cotton, which plaintiff had pledged with it as collateral security for- the payment of his indebtedness to defendant; and that these 15 bales of cotton were no part of the 233 for which the action of trover was brought, and in fact were not even in existence when that action was instituted. It is clear, therefore, that the rights of the parties relative to these 15 bales' of rent cotton could not have been involved and determined in the trover suit, unless they were," as claimed by the defendant, brought into the trial of that action under the “equitable plea” filed therein by defendant, about two years after the institution of the suit. The plaintiff contends that as the former suit sounded in tort and the present one sounds in contract, the subject-matter of this last suit could not have been litigated in the first action. In the view which we take of the case in hand, however, it is not for us now to determine what matters could have been properly pleaded in the trover suit. That was a question to be raised and determined in that case, not in this. The question with which we are concerned is, what were the issues which were actually raised by the pleadings in the former suit? Any issue which was clearly within the scope of the pleadings in that ease might have been determined by the verdict and judgment rendered therein, whether the particular pleadings which raised [648]*648such issues were, under the technical rules applicable to a case of that character, proper- or improper. And any issue which was not within the scope of such pleadings could not have been properly determined upon the- trial of that case, no matter what evidence might have been introduced. The technical rules applicable to actions of trover are pertinent here only so far as the fact of their existence may be of assistance in construing allegations, in the trover pleadings, of obscure or doubtful import and purpose; as the intention to inject into the case an issue which could not ordinarily be raised in a trover case should clearly and unmistakably appear, before the pleadings would be construed • to have raised it. Defendant contends that its “equitable plea” in the trover case was broad enough to. allow and to require, upon the trial of that case, a general accounting between the parties, embracing all of their dealings with each other, growing out of the business arrangement between them set out in its answer in that case; and that the transfer of the two rent notes to defendant by plaintiff, as additional collateral security for his indebtedness, the collection by defendant of the fifteen bales of cotton thereon, its conversion of this cotton into rnonej'- and crediting the money on plaintiff’s account, were a part .of such dealings; and that although it received this cotton after the: institution of the trover suit, it was bound, under its plea, to account for it on the trial of that case. It further contends that in 'the trover trial this mattei was fully •gone into and evidence submitted thereon, and. that the same was taken into consideration by the jury and the verdict for the plaintiff was, to the extent of the amount received by defendant for this rent cotton, larger than it otherwise would have been. In other words, its plea amounts to this, that plaintiff has already, in the trover suit, recovered that which he seeks to recover in the present action. Upon the trial under review the defendant introduced -evidence for the purpose of proving that this was true. This plea of defendant was not, strictly 'speaking, a plea of res judicata, but rather, as we have termed it in the above statement of facts, a plea of estoppel by judgment; though it is quite common to call both pleas by the former designation. Draper v. Medlock, 122 Ga. 234-238. It appeared from the plea itself that plaintiff’s cause of action in the former suit was different from his cause of action in the’ present case. “A judgment is not a technical es[649]*649toppel as to any matter, if the matter is hot such that it had, of necessity, to be determined by the court or jury, before the court could give the judgment.” Hunter v. Davis, 19 Ga. 413; Bradley v. Briggs, 55 Ga. 355. But although the mere production in evidence of the record in a former case between the same parties may not show that the subject-matter of the second suit is res judicata, because it had, of necessity, to be passed upon before the judgment in the previous suit could have been rendered, yet if such subject-matter might have been passed upon in the former litigation, under the pleadings shown by the record therein, the fact that it then was passed on may* be shown by extrinsic evidence. Draper v. Medlock, supra, and authorities cited. This principle was expressed in Johnson v. Lovelace, 61 Ga. 64, in the followiüg language : “If the record shows that' the same matters might have been litigated in the former action, then the fact that they were actually decided in that former action may be proved by extrinsic evidence.” Obviously the converse of this is true, that is, if the record shows that the same matters could not have been litigated in the former suit, then the fact that they were actually decided therein can not be shown by extrinsic evidence. It is only matters which were put in issue by the pleadings in the former case which can be shown by extrinsic evidence to have been actually decided therein. Extrinsic evidence is not admissible both for the purpose of showing, or raising, the issues in the former case and showing which of such issues were actually decided therein. In courts of record the issues are made by the written pleadings.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
58 S.E. 169, 128 Ga. 639, 1907 Ga. LEXIS 181, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/halliday-v-bank-of-stewart-county-ga-1907.