131 Minn. 375 | Minn. | 1915
The facts in this case are substantially as follows: Plaintiff had established a business of selling and delivering to patrons spring water taken from a well located upon land owned by her and the same had been
The lessees entered into possession of the property and continued thereafter to conduct the business so transferred to them. In January, 1912, defendant Cummings, who had a lease from plaintiff under which he was authorized to take and remove sand from the land adjacent to the well, set up a claim that his lease included the_well; but his claim was unfounded and without merit. Twitchell v. Cummings, 123 Minn. 270, 143 N. W. 785. Cummings was particularly aggressive in the assertion of his claim. He purchased the interest of Anderson, but sold out to one Nimmerfroh ten days later. Some time in February, 1912, he offered to sell the business to defendant Glemvood-Inglewood Company,
While appellants moved separately for a new trial, and present separate assignments of error and independent argument in support thereof, the leading questions raised are common to both, and will be considered together. It is urged that the evidence wholly fails to show a conspiracy or joint concert of action on the part of defendants to cause Anderson and Nelson to break the contract with plaintiff, and for this failure of proof that the court erred in denying a motion to dismiss the action, and also erred in instructing the jury that the record of the chattel mortgage and lease was sufficient notice to appellants of plaintiff’s rights; sufficient to charge them with wrongful interference with plaintiff’s contract relations, and in charging that actual notice was not necessary.
The cause was before the court on a former appeal (126 Minn. 423, 148 N. W. 451, 601), where it was held, following the authorities there cited, that a wrongful interference with the contract relations of others, causing a breach thereof, is an actionable tort; and, further, that the evi
The action sounds in tort, and the first question aboye stated involves the inquiry whether, to entitle plaintiff to recover, it was incumbent upon her to show a conspiracy ot joint concert of action by defendants. This question was not considered or decided on the former appeal, but it is now urged as one of the principal issues in the case. We may remark in passing that, if such joint concert of action is essential to plaintiff’s right of recovery, the evidence presented in the record is not conclusive thereon, and the issue should have been submitted to the jury. We hold, however, that the question whether joint concert of action is necessary should be answered adversely to defendants’ contention. If the acts and things done by the defendants, though they were acting independently of each other, were wrongful and an unlawful interference with the relations between plaintiff .and her lessee, and concurred in bringing about the specific injury complained of, namely, the breach of the contract and destruction of the plaintiff’s water business, they are jointly and severally liable, though there was no conspiracy or joint concert of action between them. It was held in Virtue v. Creamery Package Mnfg. Co. 123 Minn. 17, 40, 142 N. W. 930, 1136, L.R.A. 1915B, 1179, 1195, Mr. Justice Hallam speaking for the court, that all tort feasors are jointly or severally liable “even though they act independently and without concert of action, * * * provided their several acts concur in tending to produce one resulting event.” Such was the effect and result of the acts committed by both appellants in the case at bar; the acts of each tended to and did in fact bring about the breach of plaintiff’s contract, and the evidence brings the case within the rule applied in the Virtue case. The court was therefore right in its instructions. In addition to the authorities cited in that ease, see Allison v. Hobbs, 96 Me. 26, 51 Atl. 245, and those cited in 15 Enc. Pl. & Pr. 558. The rule is illustrated by the case of McClellan v. St. Paul, M. & M. Ry. Co. 58 Minn. 104, 59 N. W. 978, and by numerous citations in 38 Cyc. 488, 489. Though some of the authorities distinguish between torts arising from negligence, and those
The learned judge may have been wrong in some of his conclusions, particularly in the conclusion that constructive notice of the contract was sufficient to charge defendants with liability in tort. A request was presented for an instruction that defendants could not be held liable, unless it was found that they had actual notice of the mortgage and lease, and this was refused. But whether the court was right or wrong in its theory of the law, if it was right in the general conclusion that, on the facts disclosed, defendants are liable, the particular reason assigned as a basis for that conclusion would not be material. It may be conceded that
It follows therefore that the trial court was right in its instructions, though perhaps in error in one of the reasons given therefor, and we pass to a consideration of the assignments challenging certain rulings on the admission and exclusion of evidence, and in the instructions of the court upon the question of damages.
If there had been a total destruction of the well, and an abandonment of the business, prior to the date of the sale and transfer to the Inglewood Company, a different question would perhaps be presented. But the well had not been destroyed, nor the business abandoned, for Nelson
Order affirmed.