Elberta Crate & Box Co. v. Nitrate Agencies Co.
Elberta Crate & Box Co. v. Nitrate Agencies Co.
Opinion of the Court
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The judgment from which these two appeals were taken was rendered on a demurrer for want of facts sufficient to
We shall take the amended supplementary complaint as a starting point, for it was against it that the demurrer which caused the judgment appealed from was filed. In brief it says: that the plaintiff, Elberta 'Crate & Box Co., on August 2, 1934, filed in the lower court Civil Suit No. 21,37'9 of sa(id court, against the Standard Fruit Co. of Puerto Rico, to collect on certain notes that are described in the complaint, the sum of $4,000 as principal. That to secure the effectiveness of the judgment that could be rendered in its favor, .the plaintiff, and on the same day, August 2, 1934, attached four properties of the said defendant. The attachment of the said four properties was registered in the Registry of Property of San Juan, Second Section, on August 3, 1934.. That on August 31, 1934, judgment was rendered in the said case No. 21,379, which became final, and whereby the defendant, Standard Fruit Co. of Puerto Rico, was ordered to pay to the plaintiff the amounts claimed. That the said judgment has not been paid in whole or in part and that according to the information and belief of the defendant, the said Standard Fruit Co. of P. R., when the complaint was filed in this case, as well as in all the dates therein mentioned, had no other properties but the farms already mentioned, and that the value of all its assets was not enough to cover its liabilities, circumstances which, according to the pleadings of the plaintiff, were known by all the defendants in this case. That on March 21, 1934, the herein defendant Nitrate Agencies Co. filed also in the lower court Case No. 20,611 against the same corporation, Standard Fruit Co. of P. R., to collect on some notes that are described in the complaint, and to secure the effectiveness of the judgment, the Nitrate Agencies Co. requested and obtained an order of attachment of the properties of the Standard Fruit Co. and by virtue
Such was the complaint against which the defendants filed the demurrers of misjoinder of parties defendant, of ambiguity and of want of facts sufficient to constitute a cause of action.
On March 25,1940, the court overruled the first two demurrers and granted the third for want of facts sufficient to constitute a cause of action, likewise granting ten days to the plaintiff to amend again the complaint. The following 19th of April the plaintiff requested an extension of fifteen days to file the amended complaint, and the court denied it on the 23rd of the same month, on motion of the defendant, for the reason that the plaintiff had had twenty-four days to file said amended complaint, time which according to the court was more than enough, especially taking in consideration that the only thing that had to be alleged was that the Standard Fruit Co. and the Standard Fruit Co. of Puerto Rico were two different corporations. Six days after said extension was denied, and the complaint not having been amended, on motion of the defendant Nitrate Agencies Co. the appealed judgment was rendered, which dismissed the complaint, with costs to the defendants. The defendants
We will consider first appeal No. 8,236, taken by the plaintiff. This appeal turns on the legal effect of the omission of the words of Puerto Rico from the name Standard Fruit Co. of Puerto Eico, when the order of attachment in suit number 2,611 followed by the Nitrate Agencies Co. against Standard Fruit Co. of Puerto Eico was issued. If the omission of that part of the name of said defendant in the order of attachment had the effect to annul it, and also-to annul the annotation that was made thereof on the four-properties registered in favor of the Standard Fruit Co.. of Puerto Eico, then we would have to decide that the complaint alleges sufficient facts and the reversal of the judgment would lie. The plaintiff, notwithstanding the opportunity given to it by the lower court in granting the demurrer, could not plead that the Standard Fruit Co. was a corporation different from the one sued under the name of Standard Fruit Co. of Puerto Eico. It was simply a clerical error which occurred when the order of attachment was issued, and so it was understood both by the defendant when it did not protest, and by the registrar of property when he noted the attachment albeit the properties were registered in the name of the Standard Fruit Co. of Puerto Eico. The essential point is that the Standard Fruit Co., so named in the order of attachment, be the same Standard Fruit Co. of Puerto Eico that was sued and whose properties were affected by the noted attachment. As was said in the case of Marston v. F. C. Tibbetts Mercantile Co., 110 Me. 553, 87 Atl. 220, an error in the name of the defendant is understood to be waived by it, if said party, even if it is
In our opinion, the attachment in question is perfectly valid and in consequence, the subsequent transactions of the defendants that derive their validity from the attachment, are also valid. This being so, the appeal No. 8,236, taken by the plaintiff Elberta Crate & Box Co. will be dismissed.
Considering now appeal No. 8235, taken by the defendants, we are of the opinion that they are right to maintain that the lower court did not. make good use of its discretion in refusing to impose attorney’s fees to the plaintiff. Its obstinacy is evident. Not only was its contention frivolous, but it unnecessarily delayed this case for some years, to such an extent that the original complaint was filed on July 2, 1936, and as it appears from a motion of the plaintiff itself dated August 31, 1938, on this latter date the defendants had not yet been summoned, because the summons had been lost, as was alleged by the plaintiff, which reveals its lack of confidence in the success of this case.
Taking in consideration the obstinacy of the plaintiff in the prosecution of this case, the appeal No. 8235 taken by the defendants must be granted, and in consequence thereof, the judgment appealed from is modified, extending it so as to award $150 as attorney’s fees to the defendants, and so modified, affirmed.
Case-law data current through December 31, 2025. Source: CourtListener bulk data.