Mills v. New Orleans Seed Co.
Mills v. New Orleans Seed Co.
Opinion of the Court
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The demurrer was properly overruled. The allegations in the bill, of repeated, wilful and continuous wrongs committed and threatened by appellants, warranted the issuance of the injunction. The jurisdiction of equity in such case cannot be doubted.
It is said that the prevention of vexatious litigation and of a multiplicity of suits constitutes a favorite ground for the exercise of the jurisdiction of equity ; and it may be laid down as general rule that, wherever the rights of a party aggrieved cannot be protected or enforced in the ordinary course of proceedings at law, except by numerous and expensive suits, equity may properly interpose and afford relief by injunction. 1 High on Injunctions, Sec. 12 ; 1 Pomeroy Eq. Jur., Sec. 245.
The separate remedy at law for each of such traspasses would not be adequate to relieve the injured party from the expense, vexation and oppression of numerous suits against the same wrong-doer in regard to the same subject-matter. The ends of justice require, in such ease, that the whole wrong shall be arrested and concluded by a single proceeding. And such relief equity affords, and thereby fulfills its appropriate mission of supplying the deficiencies of legal remedies. Affirmed and remanded, with leave to appellants to answer within thirty days after the mandate of this court herein is filed in the court below.
Reference
- Full Case Name
- Warren Mills v. New Orleans Seed Co.
- Cited By
- 15 cases
- Status
- Published
- Syllabus
- J. Chancery Jurisdiction. Many acts of continuous wrong. Case in judg- . ment. The N. O. company, engaged in the business of buying and crushing cotton seed, owned a large number, of sacks, which it was accustomed to distribute to producers throughout the seed-producing country, to be filled and re-shipped to it. The W. company, a corporation in the same business, was in the habit of wilfully, knowingly and persistently using and procuring to be used the sacks of the N. O. company in shipment of seed to itself, against the protest of the N. O. company. And in one instance, when seed were shipped to the W. company in the sacks of the N. O. company, the former returned the sacks to the producers to be again filled with seed and re-shipped to it, placing one of its own sacks on the top and bottom of each bundle of sacks so returned. The N. O. company, after instituting various actions of replevin without stopping the wrong, filed a hill in chancery, setting out the above stated facts, and asking that the W. company he restrained from so using complainants’ sacks, that it be made to account for sacks already so used and damaged, and also oe made to pay damages equal to the profits arising from the business in handling such seed as it thus obtained, and which complainant would have received hut for defendants’ conduct. The defendant demurred to the hill, denying the jurisdiction of chancery. The demurrer was overruled. Held, that the Chancery Court has jurisdiction, and the demurrer was properly overruled. 2. Same. Sepeated acts of trespass. Injunction. If a trespass he continuous in its nature, and repeated acts of trespass are done, or threatened by the same wrong doer, in respect to the same subject-matter, although each of such acts, taken by itself, may not be destructive or inflict irreparable injury, and the legal remedy for such act, if it stood alone, would be adequate, yet, where the legal remedy is inadequate to relieve the injured party from the expense, vexation and oppression of numerous suits (as in the case above stated), the Chancery Court may restrain the wrong doer by injunction.