106 Ga. 427 | Ga. | 1899
The Atlanta Elevator Company brought an action against the Fulton Bag & Cotton Mills, which was dismissed on demurrer, and the plaintiff excepted. The substance of the plaintiff’s petition, the amendment thereto, and the demurrer appear in the official report. We have no difficulty in reaching the conclusion that the judgment complained of was correct. Nothing is better settled than that the measure of damages for refusing to pay money due to another is the interest lawfully accrued. Another well-settled principle is, that “if a contract be entire, but one suit can be maintained for a breach thereof.” Civil Code, § 3793. And see, in this connection, Desvergers v. Willis, 58 Ga. 388; Evans v. Collier, 79 Ga. 319; Thompson v. McDonald, 84 Ga. 5, holding that “ an account resulting from a single contract can not be split into two causes of action, the whole being mature when the first action was brought”; Allen et al. v. Stephens, 102 Ga. 596; Broxton v. Nelson, 103 Ga. 327. The mere fact that a creditor is poor, and on account of his distressed circumstances needs money due him, gives him no more right to sue a debtor for an amount admitted to be due upon a single account, reserving the right to sue for a balance in dispute, than would have a millionaire to arbitrarily cut up and bring separate suits upon a single cause of action against a debtor of the latter.
It was earnestly insisted in the argument made here for the plaintiff in error, that inasmuch as the original action had been voluntarily dismissed without having been carried to judgment,
The foregoing disposes of the plaintiff’s present action, in so far as it relates , to the balance alleged to be due to it upon account. The action for such balance not being maintainable for the reasons stated, it follows that the plaintiff can not recover therein damages on account of alleged bad faith and litigiousness on the párt of the defendant, growing out of the transactions between them. Any claim arising on this account could and should have been asserted in the first action.
Judgment affirmed.