112 Iowa 480 | Iowa | 1900
The cause of action under the substituted petition arose, according to its averments, on the seventeenth of June, 1896, and the substituted, petition was filed April 25, 1899, the time between the two events being more than two years. By the provisions of Code, section 3447, such actions are barred if not brought within two years after the causes thereof accrue. The original petition was filed within the two years, and the claim of appellant is that the cause of action stated in the substituted petition is the same as that stated in the original petition, and hence that the action is not barred. The query, then, is, does the substituted petition present a new and distinct Cause of action? Appellant’s theory is that, the action stated in each petition being for malicious prosecution, the cause of action is the same; but we cannot adopt that view of the case. The cause of an action is that which gives rise to it. The act or acts from which a liability accrues and an action for malicious prosecution may be for one of many causes. The identity of a cause of action is not fixed by the general term “malicious prosecution,” but by the averments of facts from which such an ac