27 Ga. App. 107 | Ga. Ct. App. | 1921
Lead Opinion
The suit as originally brought was for damages for an alleged breach by the vendee of a contract of purchase. The seller, proceeding under section 4131 of the Civil Code (1910), asked for damages under the 'first method of procedure as prescribed by that section, for the amount of the difference between the contract.price and the market price of the goods at the time and place for delivery. The evidence disclosed that after the alleged breach by the vendee, the seller had not in fact adopted this method of determining the amount of his damages, but had pursued for this purpose the second mode of procedure provided in the statute. The defendant thereupon, at the conclusion of the plaintiff’s evidence, moved for a nonsuit, and this motion was met by an amendment to the petition, setting out allegations on the
The trend of modern legislation, as well as of decisions of courts of last resort, has been to get away from .technical rules of pleading which tend to confuse rather than to simplify the issues, and to eliminate as far as possible all merely technical objections to the amendment of pleadings; and in this State the right of the plaintiff to amend his declaration is practically unlimited, so long as he-adheres to the original cause of action and introduce no new party. Civil Code (1910), §§ 5682, 5683. Nothing in the range of pleading is more liberal or broader than the rules stated in § 5682, supra: “A petition showing a plaintiff and a defendant, and setting out sufficient to indicate and specify some particular fact or transaction as a cause of action, is enough to amend by. The jurisdiction of the court may be shown, and the details and circumstances of the particular transaction may be amplified and varied by amendment. If the declaration omit to allege facts essential to raise the duty or obligation involved in the cause of action which was evidently originally intended to be declared upon, the omitted fact may be supplied by amendment.” The Supreme Court of this State has in so many elaborate opinions interpreted this section and the following one that it would seem now to be a matter of little difficulty to decide when a proposed amendment to a petition is legally permissible. A few of these decisions will be cited further on in this opinion, but it seems, to us that a proper construction and application of the sections of the code above referred to would be sufficient for determining the question.
Bearing in mind the fundamental statutory rule of amendment, which is practically unrestricted except that no new and distinct cause of action ór new and distinct parties can be
In the present case the seller’s cause of action arose upon the violation of the purchaser’s contract to take and pay for the goods purchased. The remedy for this wrong, while it grew out of the violation of the contract, was not a part of the cause of action, although the sequence thereof. The amendment asks only that the measure of damages which had been elected as the method of procedure before the suit was filed by the plaintiff, and by which election the plaintiff was bound, should be applied as arising from the cause of action. It has been frequently held that a different measure of damages may be added by amendment. St. John v. Leyden, 111 Ga. 152 (36 S. E. 610). In the case here cited the petition claimed as the measure of damages the value of the property sued for. The amendment which was allowed and approved by the court changed the measure of damages to the purchase price of the property. The value of the property and the purchase price of the property may have been different sums. Here the difference in the market price and the contract price, and the difference in the price on resale was exactly the same amount,' but this is immaterial, as the measure of damages was
Applying these principles to the facts of the present ease, we think it perfectly clear that the amendment did not set out a new cause of action, but related to the same transaction, to the same controversy, the one breach of the contract by the defendant, and was confined simply to the question of remedy or the measure of damages resulting from the breach, controversy, or cause of action. As was said by counsel for the defendant in error, in their most excellent brief, “ The breach of contract by defendant was clearly set out in the petition. This was the cause of action. Plaintiff alleged it had retained the goods and sued for the difference between the market price at the time and place of delivery and the contract price. The evidence showed that it had not done this, but had sold the goods after due notice, for the account of defendant. The wrong was the same. The contract was the same. The breach was the same. As a matter of fact the damages were the same to the cent, though this is immaterial. The only thing the amendment did was to adjust the remedy prayed to the facts established by the evidence. To say that this was a new cause of action is to fail to differentiate between right and remedy — cause of action and relief!’
Another reason urged why the amendment should not have been allowed is the contention that the plaintiff in filing its suit made ■ an election of remedies, and was bound by this election. It is true that when the contract of purchase was broken by the vendee the seller had the option to elect between the three statutory remedies, and, as a matter of fact, it did elect. It elected the second remedy and fully complied with the statutory requirements in that connection. And it is true also that after the seller had made this election and had acted according to requirements of the code 'in determining the amount of the damages, this was its only remedy, and when the suit was filed it had this only remedy, but erroneously claimed a remedy to which it was not entitled. The election of its remedy, by which it was bound, was made before
We do not deem it necessary to discuss the question further. After a careful consideration of the authorities a majority of the court is of the opinion that the amendment did not add a new and distinct cause of action, but simply related to the measure of damages growing out of the cause of action; that this amendment was not objectionable because it asked for different relief from that sought in the original petition; that an amendment which only changes the measure of damages to conform to the facts, and is applicable to the cause of action as set out in the original petition, is always permissible; that under the evi
Judgment affirmed.
Dissenting Opinion
dissenting. It is with a good deal of reluctance that the writer ventures to dissent from the conclusion which his colleagues have announced in this case. Not only is he impressed with the line of reasoning offered in support of the rule laid down, but he recognizes that the view here presented may seem on its face to ’run counter to the general trend and current of modern authority. Still, we are dealing with fundamentals, and however broad and liberal the right of amendment has grown to be, there yet remain three absolute limitations upon the legal exercise of this valuable right and privilege. There must be enough in the pleadings to amend by; new and distinct parties must not be added; nor can a different cause of action be substituted. Plain and simple as these rules would seem to be, it is nevertheless universally recognized that the basic and most- elementary principles of the law ofttimes present perplexing problems in their proper application. In the instant case no question arises as to a change of parties. It is also manifest that the original petition correctly set forth a cause of action, full, adequate, and complete in every detail. Consequently, there can be no question that it carried enough to amend by, so long as the ground of complaint remained the same. Not only were the original allegations of -the petition perfect and complete, not only did the averments correctly set forth all the facts, but they set forth the only facts that could possibly support “the cause of action which was evidently originally intended to be declared upon.” Civil Code (1910), § 5682. How then can that be added to which is already complete? How can errors and inaccuracies be eliminated when none do or can exist? If the original petition was perfect in that
In the syllabus of the majority opinion it is stated that the “vendor’s cause of action was the vendee’s breach of contract, and the only purpose of the amendment was to prevent a variance between the allegata and probata as to the measure of damages which the plaintiff was entitled to claim under his extrajudicial election of remedies before the filing of the suit.” If this statement of what constituted both the original and the amended ground of complaint,' and as to the purpose and effect of the amendment, be correct, the conclusion is sound and must follow. It presupposes that the breach by the vendee of its original contract of purchase constitutes the only wrong complained of both under the original petition and under the 'amendment. The case of City of Columbus v. Anglin, (120 Ga. 785, 48 S. E. 318), is quoted from as follows: “ So long as a plaintiff pleads but one wrong, he does not set up more than one cause of action. . . . So long as the facts added by the amendment, however different they may be from those alleged in the original petition, show substantially the same wrong in respect to the same transaction, the amendment is not objectionable as adding a new and distinct cause of action.” It is the opinion'of the writer that, while the original suit is plainly based upon the breach by the vendee of its original contract of purchase, the wrong complained of being its failure to take and pay for the goods as agreed, the amend
By its amendment the plaintiff sets up a new and distinct claim, which has accrued solely by virtue of its procedure under the statutory law; and invokes the aid of the court in enforcing against the defendant an obligation thus devolving upon it, not by virtue of its. contract, but solely by virtue of such procedure. The wrong complained of by the amendment is not the breach of the original contract at all. This could not be, since the vendee is no longer under obligation to take the goods under a con
The real line of demarcation between the views expressed in the majority opinion and here seems to lie in the fact that, as I see it, the course and conduct of the vendor in executing the contract, giving the notice, reselling the goods, and charging the defendant
But my brethren say that the amendment simply asked for the application of a different “ statutory measure of relief.” If this was all it did, I would agree with them in saying that it was proper and should have been allowed. The authorities cited in the majority opinion are ample to sustain the proposition that the mere measure of damages prayed for in a petition may be so amended as to make it properly conform to the allegations setting forth the wrong actually complained of. But this rule would not have application where the original measure of damages is not only correctly laid, but represents the only legal and proper basis of compensation under the cause of action declared on, and where, in order to amend the measure of damages, it is also necessary to substitute a new, distinct, and totally inconsistent claim. That the measure of damages is different might be immaterial, but not so when the measure of damages is different for the sole reason that the cause of action itself is different. While the remedy grows out of the wrong, or, to state it conversely, while the cause of action gives rise to the remedy,, the
Recurring to the case of City of Columbus v. Anglin, the following language is there used: "A number of tests have been suggested for determining whether an amendment adds a new cause of action. One general test is said to be, ‘ whether the proposed amendment is a different matter, another subject of controversy, or the same matter more fully or differently laid to meet the possible scope and varying phases of the testimony.’ 1 Enc. PI. & Pr. 564. Other tests, some of them admittedly fallible, have been suggested in different cases, — as (1) whether the original petition and the amendment would be subject to the same plea (Goddard v. Perkins, 9 N. H. 488); (2) whether the same evidence would support both (Scovill v. Glasner, 79 Mo. 449); (3) whether the same measure of damages is applicable to both (Hurst v. Railway, 84 Mich. 539 [48 N. W. 44]); (4) whether both could have been pleaded cumulatively in the same count
The gist of all that has been here said is based upon the theory that the amendment did not merely seek to apply a new measure of damages appropriate to the cause originally pleaded, but that it sought to plead new facts, setting up a new, distinct, and inconsistent right, arising not under the contract but by virtue of the mode of procedure taken under the statute; that a new and distinct statutory obligation was thus created, which the contract itself did not impose; that the new wrong actually complained of lay solely in the failure of the defendant to meet this, his new obligation, imposed not by the contract, but growing out of the statutory procedure; that the only remaining judicial remedy which the plaintiff now had was not to enforce the contract already executed, but to enforce the new statutory obligation, into which all remaining duties of the vendee had been merged; and that, since the original suit proved wholly futile, the new, different, and totally inconsistent cause of action could not be grafted thereon by amendment.