147 Ga. 106 | Ga. | 1917
The' allegations of the petition are to be con-
strued in connection with the contract of assignment between the-defendant company and the plaintiff, and also the power of attorney executed by the defendant to the. plaintiff; copies of which were attached to the petition as exhibits. The defendant Morgan was not a party to either of these papers, and the petition is not to be construed as alleging any contractual relation between plaintiff and Morgan. The allegations as to payment by Morgan to the plaintiff of portions of the contract price, from time to time, should be construed as allegations of payment to the defendant company with whom Morgan had his contract; the plaintiff collecting them in a representative capacity in pursuance of its written power of attorney. To hold otherwise would require a strained construction in favor of the pleader. It would amount to a holding that Morgan, though not a party to the writing,' had discharged the defendant company and accepted the plaintiff as a substituted contractor; a result entirely foreign to the provisions of the contract, and evidently not contemplated by the parties. In the absence of contractual relation between Morgan and the plaintiff, it was but natural that Morgan should raise no- objection to the defendant company engaging the plaintiff to perform its work under supervision of the architect, and to allow the plaintiff to collect payments during the progress of the work under power of attorney. If a substitution of the plaintiff for the defendant company had been contemplated by all of the parties, Morgan would have been a necessary party to the contract, and there would have been . no occasion for the power of attorney from the defendant' company to the plaintiff. Construing the petition as not alleging any contractual relation between plaintiff and Morgan, an instance is presented of a plaintiff joining in one action a party defendant with whom he has a contract, and another party défendant with whom he has no contract, and against each of whom he seeks general judgments in personam; in one instance,
Judgment affirmed.