GILMAN v. AMERICAN PRODUCERS' C. CO

Assignment. Practice, Civil, Parties. Jurisdiction. The fact that an assignment contains a permission to bring suit in the name of the assignor does not abridge the right of the assignee to sue in his own name given by St. 1897, c. 402.

A plaintiff may join a number of counts, each for a breach by the defendant of a contract with a different person of whom the plaintiff is the assignee, and by adding the claims together give the court jurisdiction of his case although each claim alone is below the required limit.

LORING, J.

1. The assignments of these claims to the plaintiff, in each case, gave him the right to bring the action in his own name. St. 1897, c. 402, § 1. This right was not abridged by the insertion in the assignment of a permission to bring suit in the name of the assignor.

2. In each case the aggregate damages demanded by the plaintiff on all the counts exceed in amount $1,000; this brings the case within Pub. Sts. c. 150, § 5, defining the jurisdiction of this court in Norfolk County. There is no reason why a plaintiff should not secure the amount necessary to give this court jurisdiction by adding together the damages demanded in the several counts; the right to insert any number of counts for different causes of action is expressly given by the practice act. St. 1852, c. 312, § 2. Gen. Sts. c. 129, § 2. Pub. Sts. c. 167, § 2. And before St. 1897, c. 402, a plaintiff could include in one declaration several negotiable notes made by one person, originally payable to different payees, all of which had been indorsed to him. We see no reason for holding that the assignee of a common law chose in action has not the same privilege since the enactment of St. 1897, c. 402.

Cases to be sent to an assessor to assess the damages.