Truss v. Miller

116 Ala. 494
CourtSupreme Court of Alabama
DecidedNovember 15, 1897
StatusPublished
Cited by39 cases

This text of 116 Ala. 494 (Truss v. Miller) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Alabama primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Truss v. Miller, 116 Ala. 494 (Ala. 1897).

Opinion

BRICKELL, C. J.

The correction by amendment, at any time before final decree, of insufficiency or of error, in the allegations or prayer of a bill in equity, is matter of right secured by statute. — Code of 1886, § 3449. The limitation of the right is, that by amendment, an entirely new case may not be made; nor, what is essentially the same thing, a radical departure from the cause of action as stated in the original bill; nor an entire change of parties plaintiff or defendant.. Within this limitation, all errors of omission or commission are curable by amendment. • The theory of the demurrer to the original bill was, that the purpose of [504]*504the bill was the foreclosure of the mortgage to Williams, to secure the payment of the purchase money of the lands in controversy; the mortgage debt having been purchased by the plaintiff, one of the debtors and promissors, thereby extinguishing it. If the correctness of this theory was conceded, the error was in the prayer of the bill for the foreclosure of the mortgage. The bill stated the relations of the parties, and their relations to the lands — the joint purchase from Williams by the plaintiff and Clarkson, the making of a joint note for the purchase money, and the execution of the mortgage to secure its payment; the subsequent sale to Bass, by Clarkson and the plaintiff, -of an undivided one-third interest in the lands, the conveyance to him, and the taking of his note for a part of the purchase money, payable to the plaintiff and Clarkson, which was unpaid; the purchase by the defendant Truss, at execution sale, of Bass’ interest in the lands, and his subsequent assertion of right and interest. These were the allegations of the original bill, retained and repeated in the amendment. In no proper seiise, may it be said, the amendment departed from the original bill, or has any element of a new case. The combination of facts from which the right of the plaintiff to' equitable relief arises are unchanged; the relations of the parties are not varied; the enforcement of a lien on the lands for the payment of the purchase money due from Báss is relief of the same kind and nature which would have been obtained if the prayer of the original bill for the foreclosure of the mortgage is conceded to have been inappropriate ; a question not now involved. Nor is there force in the objection, that the original bill was for the foreclosure of a mortgage, and by the amendment it is converted into a bill to enforce the equitable lien of a vendor of lands. — Moore v. Alvis, 54 Ala. 356; Pitts v. Powledge, 56 Ala. 147; Adams v. Phillips, 75 Ala. 461; Bolman v. Lohman, 74 Ala. 507. The material, controlling inquiry, in determining whether an amended bill makes a new casé, or essentially departs from the case made by the original bill, is, whether the allegations of fact setting forth the right and title .of the plaintiff, and the wrong or liability of the defendant, are changed, and for them other facts substituted from which the right to relief is deduced. The combination of facts constituting the cause of action, and from which plaintiff [505]*505deduces the right to equitable relief, is not varied — the facts form the gravamen of the original and of the amended bill.

2. The demurrer on the ground of multifariousness was property overruled. It is said, that multifariousness, as an objection to a bill, is not capable of an accurate definition. It is described generally, as the joinder of distinct and independent matters, thereby confounding them ; or the uniting in one bill of several matters, perfectly distinct and unconnected against one defendant; or the demand of several matters of a distinct and independent nature against several defendants in the same bill. — Story Eq. PL, § 271. When, as in the present case, the objection is, that distinct and unconnected matters are joined against several defendants, it is not necessary that all the parties should have an interest in all the matters of controversy; it is sufficient if each defendant has an interest in some of the matters involved and they are connected with the others. — Story Eq. PL, § 271a; Kennedy v. Kennedy, 2 Ala. 609; Larkins v. Biddle, 21 Ala. 252; Fleming v. Gilmer, 35 Ala. 62; Randle v. Boyd, 73 Ala. 282; Bolman v. Lohman, 74 Ala. 507. The principal subject matter of suit is the land, and the primary controversy is, whether the defendant Truss, by his purchase at execution sale, acquired an interest in it, freed from all liability to subjection to be charged by the mortgage to Williams, and from the lien for the purchase money due from Bass. Conceding that he is without interest in, or connection with, the equities existing between the plaintiff and the defendant Clarkson, if there is right to subject the lands, he is a necessary, indispensable party, and without his presence a decree can not be rendered quieting the litigation. If the lands be subjected, the moneys derived from the sale of them, must be applied to reimburse the plaintiff the moneys he paid Williams, in discharge of the debt due from him and Clarkson, relieving Clarkson to that extent, from the duty and liability to make contribution. It would lead to a multiplication of suits, embarrassing the administration of justice, the land being the principal subject of controversy, if all the rights and equities of the parties, growing out of a series of transactions connected with it, were not capable of determination in a single suit,

[506]*5063. It can not be doubted that Clarkson is bound to pay to the plaintiff his pro rata and just proportion of the joint debt of himself and the plaintiff to Williams for the original purchase, which the plaiutiff acquired before maturity. The relation of joint promissors for a common debt is, that each is principal for his own share of the debt and surety for the other .for the balance; but as to the common creditor, they are both principals.— Owen v. McGehee, 61 Ala. 440; 1 Brandt on Suretyship, § 38. The satisfaction by.one of the common burden, ■whether before, or at, or after maturity, brings the other under duty to contribute to the one thus paying the debt an equitable proportion of the amount required for its discharge. — 1 Story’s Eq.. Juris., §§ 493-495. Of course the parties making a contract have a right to stand upon its terms, and hence a payment before maturity by one of two joint obligors or promissors, without adoption and agreement by the other, would give no right of action until the maturity of the debt, nor could the amount of the liability exceed the full share of the debt. The effect of the payment by the plaintiff of the common debt of himself and Clarkson to Williams before 'maturity, was an equitable assignment to plaintiff as against Clarkson of the security (mortgage) held by the creditor, for the portion of the debt for which the plaintiff stood as Clarkson’s surety. The plaintiff would have this much by subrogation to Williams’' position as a creditor of Clarkson as principal, with the plaintiff as surety for him. And the act of the creditor in transferring the note to the plaintiff and in leaving the mortgage uncancelled upon the record did no more than to preserve the vitality of this unquestioned light of the plaintiff as a surety for Clarkson. — 3 Pom. Eq., § 1221; Knighton v. Curry, 62 Ala. 404; Sawyer v. Baker, 72 Ala. 49; Newbold v. Smart, 67 Ala. 326.

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Bluebook (online)
116 Ala. 494, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/truss-v-miller-ala-1897.