Robinson v. Godfrey

HOUSER, J.

Appeal from a judgment rendered in favor of defendants on the failure of plaintiff to amend his complaint after demurrer sustained thereto.

The complaint as set forth in the record on appeal covers approximately thirty pages, and while it is mechanically divided into nine paragraphs, the story of the pleader consists in allegations more or less appropriate to several different causes of action without a proper or any attempt being made to separately state them. There are first set forth facts which, with the addition of certain other facts, might form the basis for a suit in. equity on several different counts by plaintiff as a stockholder of a corporation against certain defendants for alleged fraud committed by them as officers in the management of the business of the corporation; secondly, purported causes of action in partnership accounting are attempted to be alleged as against defendant Godfrey only: and, thirdly, a similar cause of action as against defendants Godfrey and Warner. One of the named defendants is wholly disconnected from any of the allegations of the complaint other than that such defendant is alleged to be the wife of one of the other defendants.

Each of defendants James J. Godfrey and Cecille Eyre Godfrey demurred separately to the complaint, but each of such demurrers is identical with the other as to the several objections to the complaint. In brief, they are that the complaint does not state a cause of action; that in several specified particulars there is a misjoinder of parties defendant; that in the manner designated in the demurrer several causes of action have been improperly united; that several causes of action are not separately stated; that in each of fourteen specified particulars the complaint is uncertain; likewise, unintelligible; likewise ambiguous, and that as appears on the face of the complaint, the action is barred by each of the provisions of sections 337, 338, 339, and 343 of the Code of Civil Procedure.

[286]

The complaint is notable with reference to the wealth of detail and evidentiary matter therein contained, but singularly lacking in allegations of ultimate fact. If (without so deciding) by some liberality of construction it may be conceded that as to any of the several causes of action which are apparently attempted to be stated, the essential allegations are present, the remaining issues suggested by the demurrer require consideration. As to the objection to the complaint that it contains a misjoinder of parties, on an examination thereof it becomes apparent that if the intention of the pleader was to confine his cause of action to an accounting between or among partners, the array of facts regarding the activities of the corporation defendant, or of the alleged fraud of defendant Godfrey, was at least unnecessary; and the joinder in such action of the wife of one of the defendants with no allegations in the complaint showing any pecuniary interest in her in the • settlement of the controversy, was a pure gratuity. No ultimate fact is averred which would indicate the propriety of the joinder in the action for an accounting between or among partners of either the corporation defendant or the wife of one of the defendants. In the prayer of the complaint plaintiff asks for various forms of relief, including the following: “For all the relief to which this plaintiff may show himself entitled as an individual under said partnership agreement, and ■as a stockholder in the defendant’s corporation, and for all the relief, both legal and equitable, to - which this plaintiff may show himself entitled thereunder, ...”