Richtmyer v. Richtmyer

50 Barb. 55, 1867 N.Y. App. Div. LEXIS 181
CourtNew York Supreme Court
DecidedMarch 4, 1867
StatusPublished
Cited by10 cases

This text of 50 Barb. 55 (Richtmyer v. Richtmyer) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering New York Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Richtmyer v. Richtmyer, 50 Barb. 55, 1867 N.Y. App. Div. LEXIS 181 (N.Y. Super. Ct. 1867).

Opinion

Miller, J.

If the demurrer to the plaintiff’s complaint" in this action can he sustained, it must be upon the ground that several causes of action are improperly united. The defect of parties for which a demurrer is allowed under section 344 of the Code, is a deficiency of, and not too many, parties. A demurrer' will not lie for a misjoinder of parties. (Peabody v. Washington Co. Mut. Ins. Co., 20 Barb. 342. Davy v. Betts, 23 How. Pr. 396. Gregory v. Oaksmith, 12 id. 134. Id. 547. Pinckney v. Wallace, 1 Abb. Pr. 82. Id. 44. Barbour on Parties, 544. 16 Barb. 541.) The joinder of too many parties as defendants, when there is no misjoinder of subjects, is not a ground of demurrer by any one of them against whom the plaintiff states a good cause of action. (New York and New Haven Railroad Co. v. Schuyler, et al., 17 N. Y. Rep. 592, 604.)

- It is urged that the causes of action set forth in the plaintiff’s complaint embrace claims to recover real estate and to compel conveyances thereof, which can only be brought by the heirs at law or devisees, and claims to recover money and to enforce an accounting, which should he brought by the administrators of George P. Eichtmyer, deceased. The action is brought to close up a trust of both real and personal property. Although the trusts were created by different instruments, they are between the same parties, and relate to the same subject matter. Their object was to make a provision for the cestui que trust, and had the trustee and the cestui quetrust both been alive, there can, I think, be no doubt but that an action could have been brought by the latter against the former to close up the trust. The trusts created related [57]*57to property belonging to the cestui que trust, and to his support and maintenance, and were so connected together that it is difficult, to see how the trustee could account for his acts under one of the instruments without involving the other. By the first and second the trustee is to receive the. rents and profits of the real estate and the personal property, and is to furnish necessary board and maintenance. By the last he is to secure to the party a good aflfcteomfortable living and maintenance. It is evident that these instruments embraced one transaction, and could not well "be effectually closed up by a separate suit in reference to the personal and another embracing only the. real estate. As such an action would lie if both the parties were alive, there is no good reason why it cannot be brought in the names of the personal representatives and heirs at law of the cestui que trust against those who represent the trustee; that is, his widow and heirs at law. The action is not to recover real property, as seems to be supposed, but so far as this branch of the case is concerned, and as an incident to the accounting, it simply asks a conveyance of the real estate acquired by the trustee, to the parties entitled thereto. This is only a result which follows an accounting for the rents and profits of the real estate, and is not an independent cause of action.

The amount in the hands of the defendants, as successors to the trustee, and as the persons who have received the avails of .the estate, is a claim arising out of the transaction connected with the whole trust, and is so mixed up with the main subject matter—the maintenance and support of the cestui que trust—that it cannot very well be separated from the remainder of the trust, hlor does it necessarily follow that the claim as to the real estate can only be properly enforced by the heirs at law, and no other parties. This also is a part of the same transaction, and may very properly, I think, be united with the claim to account for the personal property received. The administrators are proper parties:and [58]*58plaintiffs, because they represent the personal estate which is blended with the real estate, and the heirs at law because they represent, and are entitled to, the real estate. In uniting both together,- all the parties interested against the defendants are brought into court, in conformity with the requirements of the Code, section 117.

It is not necessary to make the administrators of Abraham Richtmyer parties and defendants, because the estate has been distributed among the defendants, his widow and heirs at law, as set forth in the complaint. But if it had been, the defendants have not demurred on that account, and the objection, therefore, is not available.

I have entertained some little doubt upon the question whether the averment in the complaint, that the defendant Ervilla, took possession of the real estate upon the death of her husband, and has since been and still is in the receipt of the rents and profits does not contain a separate cause of action ; but I am inclined to think that it is only a statement of some of the facts constituting the plaintiffs’ cause of action, and is not of itself a separate cause of action. It is one of the incidents to the main object of the action, which is to compel an accounting and to close up a trust. If the action had been to close up the matters connected with the real estate, I think this averment would have been proper and necessary. If it could not be effectually closed up in one suit, and until after a liability under the trust had been established and a judgment obtained accordingly, the parties would be left to pursue a separate remedy against Ervilla alone, for the notes received by her. This, it seems to me, would scarcely be required in an action of such a character, either as to the. real estate or where the real and personal are inseparably connected, as they are here. If such a rule could be invoked, then if one of the heirs had received a.portion of' the rents and profits, and another a portion, it would be necessary to bring separate suits against each one. Ervilla being the widow of the trustee, circumstances might be shown [59]*59by which she might be considered as acting on the behalf of, or in connection with, her children, so as to make her liable to account for them as well as on her own behalf. In any point of view I think it was proper to unite in the same action every thing connected with the trust and arising from it.

It is said that the- causes of action “ must affect all the parties to the action,” (that is, must each affect all the parties.) The case to which we are referred as authority for the doctrine last stated, (15 How. Pr. 85,) was an action where several causes of action were united against several defendants where there was no connection whatever between the defendants, and where the transactions, with the defendants, were separate and distinct, and unconnected with each other. In the case at bar, the cause of action set forth does, I think, affect all the parties, and is one of that class of actions which is favored in equity, and which authorizes all the parties interested to be brought in, so as to do ample and complete justice and thus prevent excessive litigation. (Story’s Eq. Juris. § 457.) In the New York and New Haven Railroad Co. v. Schuyler, (17 N. Y. Rep. 592,) it was held that the joinder of too many persons as defendants, when there is no misjoinder- of subjects, is not a ground of demurrer, by any one of them against whom the plaintiff states a good cause of action. The learned judge, in discussing the question, says : In this state, the joinder in one suit of causes of action in some sense

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Bluebook (online)
50 Barb. 55, 1867 N.Y. App. Div. LEXIS 181, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/richtmyer-v-richtmyer-nysupct-1867.