Thompson v. Graham
Thompson v. Graham
Opinion of the Court
Opinion by
The action was for recovery of damagés for breach of an alleged verbal contract made in August, 1907, which it is claimed gave to the plaintiff the right to cut, stock, saw, haul and deliver ties, mine ties, lath, slats and tim
It is undoubtedly a fixed rule that where a party has once recovered a judgment for a part of an entire subject matter, the law will allow him no remedy for the other part. The appellant makes no contention against the rule as we have stated it, but insists that it is without application here because while he did . bring his action for part of his claim aqd obtained a judgment therefor, yet the defendant filed an appeal from the judgment so obtained which appeal was never adjudicated but was withdrawn by defendant, the controversy having been adjusted between the parties and the amount agreed upon paid. The argument is. that inasmuch as the judgment had been appealed from by the defendant it was not final; that the appeal opened or annulled it, leaving the matter to be proceeded with de novo. The argument would be forceable were its premises admitted; but
“This judgment became absolute by the discontinuance of the appeal, and was a bar to so much of the plaintiff’s present demand as was embraced within it.”
The judgment is affirmed.
Reference
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- Contracts — Action for breach — Indivisible .contracts — Judgment obtained subsequent, to breach as bar to ,action — Judgment before magistrate — Effect of appeal from magistrate’s judgment — Defenses. 1. Upon an action for recovery of damages for breach of an alleged verbal contract made in August, .1907, which it was claimed gave to the plaintiff the right to cut, stock, saw, haul and deliver ties, mine ties, lath, slats and timber from a certain tract of timber land, to the defendant’s use, at a certain schedule of rates, and the breach of a certain other verbal contract made September, 1908, collateral to the first contract, it appeared that subsequent to the breaches complained of, plaintiff brought suit against the defendant before a justice of the peace to recover a balance claimed.' to be due on account of work done under the contracts ■ and obtained judgment therefor. Held, that the right of action in the plaintiffs being in its nature entire and indivisible, the recovery subsequent to the breach for one part of the claim was a bar to further action by the plaintiff for the whole, the residue or another part of the original claim, and that a nonsuit was properly directed. ■ • 2. In such a case it was further held that the fact that the defendant had filed an appeal from the judgment obtained before the magistrate, which appeal was never adjudicated but was withdrawn by defendant, the controversy having been adjusted between the parties and the amount agreed upon paid, was no ground for the removal of the nonsuit, since the fact that the judgment was appealable did not render it any the less definitive.