Robertson v. Davis

⁷⁰⁹ Digges, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. The appellants bring this appeal contending that the trial judge, in this jury case, committed error when he allowed the appellees leave to amend their pleadings to include claims for rent, which had accrued from the institution of this suit to the day of trial. 1 In support of their efforts to obtain a reversal, appellants reason that because a suit for rent involves an independent cause of action in assumpsit for each rental payment as it becomes due, the monthly rent obligations which have accrued in this instance subsequent to the institution of suit cannot be appended to it. This is so, they say, because these latter demands for rent are not part and parcel of a “continuing injury.” Assuming, without deciding, that each rental payment as it accrues in this case gives rise to a separate cause of action, nevertheless, it is our opinion that the trial judge was authorized by the Maryland Rules to permit the amendment. We have reached this conclusion by reading two of these rules together.

Rule 320 c 2 makes it abundantly clear that “[i]n a case tried before a jury,” the trial judge may permit any party to amend his pleadings “any time before the jury retires to make up its verdict.” And, Rule 313 a states that “[t]he plaintiff may join in one action either as independent or as alternate claims as many claims as he may have against the defendant. . . .” That claims can be joined before or after the institution of the suit through the combined action of these rules was established by our decision in Cook v. Alexandria Nat’l Bank, 263 Md. 147, 150 , 282 A. 2d 97 (1971), where it is said that “[t]he mere initiation of a suit . . . does not constitute an election which would bar ... an amended claim from being filed in the same action . . . .” The objective