Todaro v. Somerville Realty Co.

The complaint now before us does not appear to state two causes of action separately; but the allegations stating either one or two causes of action are intermingled and stated as if there was but one cause of action. On a demurrer for misjoinder of causes of action, the form of the complaint does not control, and it may be searched to ascertain whether in fact it sets forth two causes of action. O’Connor v. Virginia Passenger & Power Co., ut supra; Goldberg v. Utley, 60 N. Y. 427 .

This brings us to an examination of a somewhat long and involved complaint—and this is said in no carping spirit, for perhaps its length and prolixity were not easily avoidable. To state its contents briefly: The plaintiff is in possession as owner of certain real property at Coney Island in the borough of Brooklyn. He purchased the property from one Ryan, who is alleged to have been a representative and agent of the defendant the Somerville Realty Company, under a written contract with said Ryan. Under that contract he paid the cash prescribed by its terms and gave two purchase-money mortgages, as therein prescribed, and received a full covenant warranty deed from the Somerville Realty Company. He thereupon entered into possession of the property and built a house and other structures upon it at an expense of over $7,000. He has paid interest on the mortgages, but has now discovered that the land in question is the subject of a hostile claim of ownership on the part of the defendant the city of New York. He claims that he was put to sleep as to the true character of the title

In a large sense the cause, or causes, of action attempted to be stated in this complaint call for relief in equity, or, at least,' according to the rules of equity. So far as the plaintiff is proceeding against the city of New York, he must rest his action on certain statutory provisions, viz., sections 1638 to 1650 of the Code of Civil Procedure. These are the sections which grant a right to maintain an action to determine a hostile and unjust claim to real property in the possession of a plaintiff, and regulate its form and procedure. They are not simply declaratory of pre-existing rights of action at equity; for, while they embrace a subject formerly cognizable at equity, in varying aspects, they enlarge the scope of relief and grant a remedy far broader than that afforded by the old equitable remedies of a “bill quia timet,” or a “bill to quiet title.” 2 Pomeroy’s Equitable Remedies, §§ 723-743, inclusive. While it is important to bear this distinction in mind, it is not controlling in the decision of the question now before us, for section 484 of the Code allows a joinder of -causes of action, under certain circumstances, whether they be legal'or equitable.

It is insisted most earnestly by the able counsel for the appellant that this complaint states but one cause of action because the whole controversy-relates to but one subject-matter, viz., a determination as to the title to the real property described in the complaint, and that all the parties to the action are affected in one way or other by such determination. If it be determined that the defendant the city of New York should be barred of all claim of title, then that determination

While section 484 of the Code of Civil Procedure, was designed to simplify the process of pleading, it has not fully accomplished the intended result, for the books are full of cases wherein the question of whether there was one cause of action, or several causes of action properly joined, has been debated and decided with rather frequent and sharp division of judicial opinion. These conflicts of opinion have arisen from the ever present desire to bend the rigidity of procedure to the exigencies of substantial justice in the particular case. In the early stages of our jurisprudence, procedure dominated substantive law. It was then far more important to know whether there was a form of action to afford a remedy for the enforcement of a right than it was to possess a right. As Sir Henry Maine declared:

“So great is the ascendancy of the law of actions in the infancy of courts of justice that substantive law had at first the look of being gradually secreted in the interstices of the forms of action.” Maine’s Early Law & Customs, 389.

This ascendency of procedure begat the system of equity jurisprudence as a necessary corrective or supplement, which in turn so hardened under its own forms of procedure that a bill in equity became the work of specialists in pleading and proved frequently a pitfall for him who ventured in without long and arduous training. Equity no longer had the arms of Briareus, but went thenceforth fettered to some extent with procedure until the comparatively recent reforms in pleading, enacted in the Codes of Civil Procedure or by the rules of the various courts. While the fetters are not so impeding nor so galling as in the past, many of them still remain, and doubtless necessarily so, for the purpose of procedure is order, and without order there can be no satisfactory nor uniform enforcement of substantive law. Therefore, however desirable it may be that a plaintiff may obtain all his remedies in one action, the court is bound, in its attempt to enforce his rights, by the procedure laid down by sovereign authority, for it is alone by delegation from this sovereign authority that a court has power in the premises at all.

The appellant seeks to bring the complaint within the scope of the ruling in Porter v. International Bridge Co., 163 N. Y. 79 , 57 N. E. 174 , where, in answer to a demurrer for misjoinder, it was held that the complaint stated but one cause of action. There the complaint stated that the plaintiffs’ ancestors as owners of certain land in the city of Buffalo had granted to the city a license to use the land as a public square, and that certain defendants, railroad corporations, acting under permission from the city, had wrongfully entered upon the land and laid railway tracks, and built structures thereon and continued to trespass thereon. The relief sought was that the defendants be

“All the rights sought to be established and enforced arose out of the same transaction or transactions connected with the same subject of action, and their joinder in the same complaint was justified by the provisions of section 484.’’

Here, it is apparent, from the very language of the court, that its decision was not based exclusively upon the theory that there was but one cause of action, but rather that, if there were really several causes of action, they were joinable in the one complaint.

So far as concerns the complaint before us, if it states two causes of action, they may be joined therein under section 484 of the Code of Civil Procedure, provided they arise "out of the same transaction, or transactions connected with the same subject of action,” and provided further that it appears on the face of the complaint “that they are consistent with each other; and, except as otherwise prescribed by law, that they affect all the parties to the action.” Code Civ. Proc. § 484. In sustaining the demurrer of the city of New York for an improper misjoinder of causes of action, the learned court.at Special Term declared that “the demurrer of the city is good beyond the possibility of discussion,” and refrained from any further expression of opinion. To our mind, the question here involved is not so simple. The real ground of the demurrer is that there is a misjoinder of causes of action because the two alleged causes of action do not affect all the parties to the action; that is, as the respondent contends, the claim of fraud on the part of the other defendants does not affect the city’s title to the land described in the complaint. Whether there be one or two causes of action stated in the complaint, the subject-matter of the action is the land described in the complaint, and all of the defendants, are interested therein. It is not necessary that the plaintiff’s cause of action should arise against all the defendants out of the same transac1 tion; it may, arise from a series of transactions connected with the same subject-matter. The gravamen of the complaint is an alleged fraud through which the plaintiff claims to have been injured. It is from this alleged fraud that his cause or causes of action arise. He claims that he was deceived by the fraud in question because the city stood by knowingly, secretly possessed of, or claiming, title, while the other parties offered the land, to which they had no title, for sale to. innocent purchasers. The fraud which deceive'd and injured him consisted not alone of the acts of the other defendants, but likewise, and just as effectively, of the passive and concurrent act of the city in , standing by quietly when it was chargeable with knowledge of what its. codefendants were seeking to .do. In other words, the fraud which

It is urged, however, that if the defendant the city of New York should by its answer raise an issue of fact and set up its own title, it will become entitled to a trial by jury. Code Civ. Proc. § 1642. This being so, it is further urged that the causes of action set forth in this complaint will demand two places of trial, one before a jury as to the defendant the city of New York, and one before the court alone in equity. Section 484 of the Code expressly provides that, in order that separate causes of action may be joined in one complaint, “it must appear upon the face of the complaint, that they do not require different places of trial.” It has been held, however, that this objection cannot be raised by demurrer (Townsend v. Bogert, 126 N. Y. 370 , 27 N. E. 555 , 22 Am. St. Rep. 835 ), where the action is in equity. When the defendant the city of New York comes to answer, it may disclaim any title whatever, or it may set up a title in which the only question will be one of law, or it may set up a title which on equitable grounds it may be barred from asserting. Even in an action in ejectment, the question of estoppel may be one for the court and not for a jury. Trustees, etc., v. Smith, 118 N. Y. 634 , 23 N. E. 1002 , 7 L. R. A. 755 . As was said in Townsend v. Bogert, ut supra:

“Ttie plaintiff cannot negative in his complaint a character of their claim of which he asserts his ignorance. * * * If his (the defendant’s) interest is of a nature not subject to a trial in the partition suit, he may plead the facts in his answer and again seek a dismissal of the complaint -as against himself. And so his rights may be perfectly preserved without leaving the plaintiff to blunder in the dark to an imperfect remedy.”

Whether this complaint states one or two causes of action, we think that it is not demurrable on the grounds assigned in the demurrer. The plaintiff has come into equity, under very embarrassing circumstances, and, as was said by this court but very recently:

/“Equity permits- all persons related to the subject-matter, who have a com/inon interest in one or more branches of it, to be joined in an action.when the subject-matter has become so involved and the rights of the parties are in doubt and it is difficult to determine who is and who is not liable, except upon j a full hearing -before the court, which can adjudicate the questions and settle j the rights of all of the parties, and make its judgment so full and comprehen- , sive as to quiet the controversy in all of its aspects, protect those compelled to obey its decrees, and prevent further litigation.” Rich, J., in Galeo v. Goldstein, 134 App. Div. 228 , 118 N. Y. Supp. 859 .

We are of opinion, therefore, that the judgment sustaining the demurrer and dismissing the complaint should be reversed, with costs and disbursements, and that the demurrer should be overruled, with