Harris v. Elliott

51 N.Y.S. 1012
Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of the State of New York·Decided May 20, 1898·Published·Cited by 2 cases

Opinion

RUMSEY, J.

This action was brought in the month of November, 1895. The parties to the original action were the executors of John Elliott, the members of the firm of Riggs & Co., the administrator of the estate of Charles A. De Chambrun, and the administra[1013]*1013trix of the estate of Thomas M. Wheeler. The complaint alleged that there had been assigned to the plaintiff by Thomas M. Wheeler a mortgage to secure the sum of §10,875, which the plaintiff held as trustee for the benefit of John Elliott in a certain sum, and for the benefit of Biggs & Go. in another sum, and upon the collection of the mortgage, or upon the payment of those sums, he would reassign the mortgage to Wheeler. The plaintiff alleged in his complaint that De Chambrun had agreed to pay the plaintiff $2,500 for certain services, and Be Chambrun and Wheeler had agreed to pay him $1,956 for certain other services, and that he was entitled to a lien upon the money collected upon said mortgage, after the payments of the amounts due to Elliott and Biggs & Co., to secure the payment of the two sums owing to him from De Chambrun. He alleged that the amount of the mortgage had been paid to him, and he brought the action to obtain a judgment fixing the amounts owing to Biggs & Co. and to Elliott, and to Wheeler, as the oAvner of the mortgage," and asking that he should be adjudged to ktwe a lien upon the remainder of the proceeds of the mortgage to secure the payment to him of the said sums of $2,500 and $1,956; but it Avas conceded in the complaint that such lien was subject to the prior lien of Biggs & Co. and Elliott, and the relief asked was that it be so declared. It is important that this fact should be borne in mind, because the plaintiff did not bring the original action to assert any claim upon the proceeds of the mortgage which belonged to Elliott or to Biggs & Co., but he expressly stated that whatever claim he might haAre had to a remainder of the proceeds of the mortgage was subject to the prior rights of Elliott and of Biggs & Co. After the action had been brought and was at issue, and on the 14th of December, 1896, it Avas settled by contract, by which the plaintiff agreed to pay the sum of §8,077.96 on the 15th of January, 1897, in full settlement of the amounts claimed by Elliott and Biggs & Co.; to pay to De Chambrun the sum of $1,164.40, and to the administratrix of Wheeler the sum of $1,170.20; and it was agreed that upon the making of those payments an order of discontinuance should be entered. After that agreement had been made, and a portion of the money had been paid under it, the plaintiff applied for leave to serve a supplemental complaint, which was granted, and thereupon he served upon the defendants a complaint setting up this agreement for a settlement; that he had paid to Elliott and Biggs & Co. the sum of $5,000, and to De Chambrun the full amount agreed to be paid to him. The plaintiff then set up that the executors of Elliott were indebted to him in the sum of §5,700 for services which he rendered to John Elliott, their testator, and to the defendants as executors in a certain action. He also set up that the firm of Biggs & Co. was indebted to him in a certain other sum for sendees rendered to them as attorney at law, which were more particularly set out. He also set up that the defendant Walker, as administratrix of Wheeler, was indebted to him in the sum of §1,141 for promissory notes giiren by "Wheeler to him, and which he then held. The judgment he asked in his supplemental complaint was that the action had been compromised, and [1014]*1014that the amount due to him from the executors of Elliott and from Biggs & Co., and from Walker as administratrix of Wheeler, be fixed and ascertained, and whatever was due to them by reason of the agreement for a settlement be applied upon those amounts, and that he have judgment for the remainder. To the complaint as thus changed the executors of Elliott and Biggs & Co. demurred separately; and upon the trial of the issue of law thus raised the demurrer was sustained, and judgment ordered for those defendants. From that judgment this appeal is taken.

The supplemental complaint is not a substitute for the original complaint, but both stand as one pleading. Lovatt v. Watson, 35 Hun, 553, 555. The two papers are read together, and the demurrer is taken to both. It is “to the amended supplemental complaint.” It will be noticed that in the original complaint the plaintiff claimed no lien upon that portion of the mortgage which was to be paid to Elliott or to Riggs & Co., but expressly asked that any claim which he had should be subject to their prior rights. Therefore, as against them, he had no right to insist that whatever sum was coming to them out of the mortgage should be made subject to any debt which they owed him; nor does he in the supplemental complaint allege any lien upon the portion of the fund belonging to them, nor does he set up any facts out of which a lien can arise. He says he performed certain services for Elliott, as attorney, by reason of which his executors became indebted to him in the sum of $5,700; but these services were not rendered in the matter of his trusteeship of this mortgage, and, so far as appears,-they had no relation whatever to the mortgage. So, with regard to Riggs & Co., he alleges that they owed him $2,500 for professional services; but it is evident from the dates ■of those services that they were not performed by him in any matter connected with the trusteeship, but whatever debt there was from Riggs & Co. accrued as early as 1886, which was a long time before the mortgage was transferred to the plaintiff. The claim set up in this complaint against Elliott constitutes simply a cause of action for services rendered to him, for which he alone is liable, and it has no connection whatever with the debt due from the plaintiff; and Riggs & Co. and the administratrix of Wheeler have nothing whatever to do with it. So the claim against Riggs & Co. is simply a legal cause of action against them for services not rendered in connection with this trusteeship, and out of which no lien whatever upon this debt arises. It is purely an effort to unite in one cause of action a legal claim against Riggs & Co. with another against Elliott, and with a third against the administratrix of Wheeler. Section 484 of the Code of Civil Procedure authorizes the uniting in the same complaint of several causes of action upon contract, but it expressly requires that those causes of action should affect all the parties to the action. It is not meant by this that the same judgment should be asked for against each defendant, but, to permit the joining of several defendants where a money judgment only is asked for, it is necessary that each defendant should have an interest either in the subject of the action, or in a fund out of which the money judg[1015]*1015ment must, as a result of the action, he derived. But whenever it appears that one defendant has no interest whatever in the result of the action, so far as any other defendant is concerned, and that there is no common fund, in regard to which the rights of the defendants are to be adjudged, he cannot be joined with the other defendants.

It clearly appears in this case-that Biggs & Co. have no interest whatever in any judgment that is asked against the executors of Elliott, nor have the executors of Elliott any interest whatever in the judgment asked against Biggs & Co.

Free access — add to your briefcase to read the full text and ask questions with AI

Harris v. Elliott, 51 N.Y.S. 1012 (N.Y. Ct. App. 1898).

51 N.Y.S. 1012 (Harris v. Elliott) — published by Counsel Stack Legal Research, free access to 12M+ legal documents.

Related

Bilder v. Ellis
133 N.Y.S. 425 (Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of New York, 1912)
Kent v. West
33 A.D. 112 (Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of New York, 1898)