Mogollon Gold & Copper Co. v. Stout

14 N.M. 245
CourtNew Mexico Supreme Court
DecidedAugust 28, 1907
DocketNo. 1159
StatusPublished
Cited by10 cases

This text of 14 N.M. 245 (Mogollon Gold & Copper Co. v. Stout) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering New Mexico Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Mogollon Gold & Copper Co. v. Stout, 14 N.M. 245 (N.M. 1907).

Opinion

OPINION OP THE COURT.

MILLS, C. J.

Of the several assignments of error we will consider those that we deem pertinent to the proper disposition of this case. It will not be necessary to take them up severally, as those which relate to the measure of damages can properly be considered together.

1. The first alleged error to be considered is that the court below erred in overruling the motion of defendant to strike the cause from the jury trial docket and in submitting the cause to trial by jury.

The claim of plaintiff in error is based upon the well known principle that if jurisdiction attaches, a court of' equity will go on and do complete justice, although in its progress it may decree on matter which was cognizable at law, and that as the complaint in this case set up facts, which called for both legal and equitable relief, that when the court took jurisdiction for the purpose of administering equitable relief, that is issuing the injunction prayed for, that it took jurisdiction of the case for all purposes, and would itself decide the questions of fact involved in the case, without the intervention of a jury.

Our code of civil procedure authorizes the uniting of both legal and equitable causes of action in the same complaint, where they arise out of the same transaction or transactions, connected with the same subject of action. Sub. Sec. 33, of Sec. 2865, Compiled Laws of 1897.

Even a cursory examination of the statement of facts which precedes this opinion, will show that the legal and equitable causes of action stated in the complaint arise out of the same transaction. Indeed it is nowhere contended that the complaint improperly joined causes of action.

The complaint sets up what under the common law rules would have been a good declaration in trespass on the case, and also asks for two remedies, to-wit: (l)a judgment for the sum of $2,000.00 and (2) that the plaintiff be decreed to have a prior right to the use of the waters of Mineral Creek, and, that the Copper Company be enjoined from polluting the waters of said creek.

The record also discloses that a verdict was returned by the jury which tried the cause in December 1905, while nothing was done about securing the restraining order until March 1906, more than two months after the jury had passed upon the cause. Indeed the record does not show that a permanent injunction has ever been granted in the ease.

By section 1868 of the Bevised Statutes of the United States the District Courts of this and other Territories possess chancery as well as common law jurisdiction, and at one time it was a serious question as to whether a territorial legislature had the right to adopt a code of civil procedure, but on April 7th, 1874, this right was given by act of Congress, but attached to it the proviso that by the enactment of a code no person should be deprived of the right of trial by jury in cases cognizable at common law.

1 There is no doubt as stated above but that the complaint in this case down to the prayer for relief sets up a state of facts which was “cognizable at common law”, and which entitled the plaintiff to the' right of a trial by jury, and under the Alcts of Congress just above referred to^ the legislature could not, even if it had been disposed, which we do not even for a moment intimate, have taken away this right. The mere fact that the defendant in error united in one complaint the necessary allegations and prayers for legal and equitable relief does not deprive him of his right to a jury trial on the legal issues. And this has been the holding and we think properly, in nearly all of the code states. Pomeroy’s Code Remedies, Secs. 59, 86; Hill v. Smith, 27 Cal. 476; Potter v. Froment, 47 Cal. 165; Hudson v. Carroll, 44 N. Y. 553; Sternberger v. McGovern, 56 N. Y. 12; McPherson v. Featherstone, 37 Wis. 632; Hughes v. Dunlap, 91 Cal. 385; and the highest federal court has held likewise in a ease very similar to this which came up from Montana, when it was still a territory, and its courts were organized under a law about the same as ours. The syllabus in the case of Basey, et al v. Gallagher, 20 Wall. 670, which was decided in 1874, says “although by the organic act of the Territory of Montana common law and chancery jurisdiction is exercised by the same court, and by legislation of the Territory the distinctions between the pleadings and modes of procedure in common law actions and those in equity suits are abolished, the essential distinction between law and equity is not changed. The relief which the law affords must be administered through the intervention of a jury, unless a jury be waived; the relief which equity affords must be applied by the court itself,” and the same rule has been held to be the law in Hornbuckle v. Toombs, 18 Wall 648; Hershfield v. Griffith, 18 Wall 657; and Davis v. Bilsland, 18 Wall 659. It will be observed that all of these federal eases were decided before the passage by Congress of the Act of April 7th, 1874, which expressly saves to a litigant the right of trial by jury. It is true that the plaintiff in error quotes in support of his contention the case of Lynch v. Metropolitan Ry. Co., 129 N. Y. 274, and several federal cases, but the Lynch ease seems to stand alone, and is, we think, overwhelmed by the number of eases which hold to the contrary, while all of the federal cases cited, except the first, refer to damages as to infringements of patents, which class of eases is governed by statute, Secs. 4919 and 4921, Bev. Statutes of the L. S¡, providing that damages for infringement may be adjudged either in law or equity. The first ease cited by counsel for plaintiff in error, is that of Barton v. Barbour, 104 U. S. 126, and as we understand that case all that the court holds is that a receiver of an insolvent railroad, where the decree appointing him provides that he has authority to defend all actions brought against him by leave of the court, cannot be sued as such receiver, in another jurisdiction, unless the order of the court by which he was appointed receiver, for leave to bring the suit, be first obtained.

The true rule seems ro us to be that in a suit for damages where an injunction is also asked, that if the suit is primarily for the injunction and the right to damages is merely incidental to and dependent upon plaintiff’s right to the injunction, the court may without the intervention of a jury assess the damages already sustained; but if the action is brought primarily for the recovery of a money judgment it is triable by a jury, notwithstanding that tbe plaintiff also asks for an injunction against the further violation of his rights, or an injunction pendente lite, 24 Oye. 122.

2. The next error assigned which we need to consider is that the court below erred in overruling defendant’s motion for a continuance.

The record shows that the complaint in this cose.wás filed on July '13th, 1904. On August 30th, 1904, a special answer, in the nature of a plea in abatement, was filed, stating that the name in which defendant was sued was not its true name; on September 9th, 1904, answer was filed, and on September 12th, 1904, leave was given to amend the complaint by correcting the name of the defendant by interlineation.

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Bluebook (online)
14 N.M. 245, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/mogollon-gold-copper-co-v-stout-nm-1907.