68 Neb. 91 | Neb. | 1903
This was a suit in equity, in which George W. Seiyer was plaintiff and the Union Pacific Railroad Company, George Miltonburger and Walter Miltonburger were defendants. The trial resulted in a decree enjoining the Miltonburgers from suing out or prosecuting any further or other proceedings in garnishment against the said Seiyer, and at the same time the Union Pacific Railroad Company was restrained and enjoined from answering any such further or other proceedings, and from paying the wages which it owed to Seiyer into court thereon, or to any one except him, on the ground that such wages were absolutely exempt to him from execution or proceedings in garnishment. Prom that decree the Miltonburgers bring the case here on appeal.
It must be conceded that the decree, so far as the railroad company is concerned, is a proper one, and if the court had jurisdiction of the persons of the appellants, then the judgment is just and equitable as to them and must be affirmed.. The facts pleaded and proved by the appellee surely call for the interposition of a court of equity, and demand the relief prayed for. It can not be successfully asserted that the appellee had an adequate remedy at law in this case. The court found that his wages, sought to be subjected by the proceedings' complained of to the payment of the judgment, were absolutely exempt to him by law. The appellants knew this as well as he did, and yet, by a series of garnishment proceedings, amounting to a persecution in this case, they sought to compel him to pay the judgment out of such exempt money, or expend it all in protecting his legal right thereto. Not only this, but they evidently sought to annoy and harass
This brings us to the consideration of the question of jurisdiction. Section 65 of our Code of Civil Procedure provides that “Where the action is rightly brought in any county, according to the provisions of title four, a summons shall be issued to any other county, against any one or more of the defendants, at plaintiff’s request.” Title IY (secs. 51-61b), after designating the actions which must be brought in a certain specified county, provides that every other action must be brought in the county in which the defendant, or some one of the defendants, resides, or may be summoned; and it is further provided in said title that a railroad company may be served with summons in any county into or through which its line of road passes. It follows that the Union Pacific Railroad Company was properly sued and served with summons in Sarpy county, and if it was properly made a defendant in the action, the issuance of a summons to the sheriff of
The true test, however, for dete3mining whether or not the venue is proper so that summons may issue to another county is whether the defendant seswed in the county where the suit is brought is a bona-fide defendant to that action— whether his interest in the result of the action is in any 3nanner adverse to that of the plaintiff with respect to the cause of action against the other defendant, and in equity actions may be added the inquiry as to whether or not plaintiff can obtain full, suitable and satisfactory relief without joining such party, and binding him by the terms of the judgment or decree.
Equitable doctrines with respect to parties and judgments are wholly unlike those which prevail at common law — different in their fundamental conceptions, in their practical operation, in their adaptability to circumstances and in their results upon the rights and duties of litigants. The governing motive of equity in the administration of its remedial system is to grant full relief, and to adjust in the one suit the rights and duties of all the parties which really grow out of, or are connected with, the subject-matter of that suit. The primary object is that all persons sufficiently interested may be before the court, so that the relief may be properly adjusted among those entitled, the liabilities properly apportioned, and the incidental or consequential claims or interests of all may be fixed and all
Speaking of the question of parties in actions to prevent a multiplicity of suits, Pomeroy says: “Under the great-, est diversity of circumstances, and the greatest variety of claims arising from unauthorized public acts, private tortious acts, invasion of property rights, violation of contract obligations, and nothwithstanding the positive denials by some American courts, the weight of authority is simply overwhelming that the jurisdiction may and should be exercised, either on behalf of a numerous body of separate claimants against a.single party, or on behalf of a single party against such a numerous body, although there is no ‘common title,’ nor ‘community of right’ or of ‘interest in the subject-matter,’ among these individuals, but where there is and because there is merely a community of interest among them in the questions of law and fact involved in the general controversy, or in the kind and form of relief demanded and obtained by or against each individual member of the numerous body.” Further speaking of the objection raised to this doctrine, Pomeroy says: “The sole and sufficient answer to the objection is found in the actual facts. The jurisdiction has been exercised in a great variety of cases where the individual claimants were completely separate and distinct, and the only community of interest among them was in the question at issue, and perhaps in the kind of relief, and the single decree has without any difficulty settled the entire controversy and determined the separate rights and obligations of each individual claimant. The same principle therefore embraces both the technical ‘bills of peace,’ in which there is confessedly a common right or title, or community of interest in the subject-matter, and also those analogous cases over which the jurisdiction has been extended, in which there is no such common right or title or community of interest in the subject-matter, but only a community of interest in the question involved and the kind of relief obtained.” Pomerov, Equity Jurisprudence, sec. 269.
So we are constrained to hold that the Union Pacific Railroad Company was not only a proper but a necessary party in the suit; that the action having been properly commenced against it in Sarpy county, and it having been served with summons therein, tlu issuance of summons to the sheriff of Dodge county and the proper service thereof on the appellants gave the court full and complete jurisdiction to hear and determine the questions involved in the action and render a suitable and proper decree therein.
We further hold that according to the facts disciosed by the record, the decree- of the district court was right, and we recommend that it be affirmed.
By the Court: For the reasons given in the foregoing opinion, the judgment of the district court is
Affirmed.