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6 Colo. 149

Givens v. Wheeler

Supreme Court of Colorado

Decided April 15, 1882

Supreme Court of Colorado · decided 1882-04-15

<p>A plaintiff cannot abandon his original cause of action and substitute an entirely new cause of action in his complaint.</p>

Relies on Lottman v. Barnett · Barnes v. City of Beloit · City of Milwaukee v. Milwaukee & Beloit Railroad

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1882-04-15

How this case has been cited

Cited by 15 later decisions — most recently April 1937

14 state decisions

50188218901900191019201930decided

Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

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¶1On petition'for rehearing, the following opinion was rendered by

Elbert, C. J.

¶2The original complaint in this cause was for a breach of covenant of warranty contained in the defendant’s deed to the plaintiff.

¶3The answer of the defendant traversed the breach, and the cause was at issue.

¶4*150The plaintiff thereupon filed an amended complaint in which he abandoned the cause of action stated in his original complaint, and stated another and entirely different cause of action in the nature of a fraud and deceit, alleging that he had negotiated for, and purchased of the defendant, a certain sheep ranch, and paid the purchase money therefor, and that the defendant, pretending to convey the same to the plaintiff, fraudulently conveyed to him another and entirely different parcel of land.

¶5This changed the action from one ex contractu to one ex delicto. In our former opinion we held that a plaintiff could not thus abandon his original action, and substitute an entirely new cause of action.

¶6Counsel in their petition for rehearing claim that this ruling is in conflict with the liberal spirit of the code, as well as with the rulings of' the code states.

¶7The reason of this rule is obvious. The character of the proceeding is changed by the amended complaint, and the defendant finds himself in court to answer a charge concerning which he has never been summoned. In the case of Ramirez v. Murray, 5 Cal. 222, Chief Justice Murray says of such a practice, that it is “too loose and dangerous to be tolerated.” In Kentucky, in such a case, it is held that a new summons should issue, as otherwise “great injustice and oppression might be occasioned.” Rutledge v. Van Metre, 8 Bush, 356.

¶8This recognizes the propriety of the rule laid down in our former opinion, and treats the amended complaint as a new action.

¶9The claim that the decision is in conflict with the decisions of the code states cannot, we think, be sustained. We refer to the following additional authorities in support of the rule as announced: Woodruff v. Dickie, 5 Rob. 620; Dows et al. v. Green et al. 3 How. Pr. 379; Sheldon v. Adams, 27 How. Pr. 182; Lottman v. Barnett, 62 Mo. 170; Lackner v. Turnbull, 7 Wis. 95; Newton v. Allen, 12 Wis., 380; Sweet v. Mitchell, 15 Wis. 664; Lar*151kin v. Noonan, 19 Wis. 93; Stevens v. Brooks, 23 Wis. 199; Board of Supervisors, etc. v. Decker, 34 Wis. 380.

¶10In the case of Woodruff v. Dickie, 5 Rob., supra, Monell, J., says: “Under the code, however, in a few cases it had been held that the court has power to allow, as an amendment, the insertion of a new cause of action. … An amendment is the correction of some error or mistake in a pleading already before the court, and there:*must therefore be something to amend by; whereas the insertion of facts, constituting a new cause of action or defense, would be a substituted pleading, and not an amendment of an existing pleading. The cases referred to furnish no satisfactory reason for holding such an amendment to be within the power of the court to grant.”

¶11The petition for rehearing is denied.

¶12Rehearing denied.

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