SUPREME COURT OF THE CANAL ZONE.

imprisonment and malicious prosecution would have been bad because of misjoinder of causes. But it is an elementary principle of code pleading that all actions may be joined which are similar in their nature, arise out of the same transaction, and are between the same parties. This rule is common to many jurisdictions wherein code pleading is in force and hardly needs citation of authority to support it. It is well stated in Bliss on Code Pleading, 3d edition, section 112, as follows:
The plaintiff may unite in the same complaint several causes of action whether the same be such as have heretofore been nominated legal or equitable, or both, when they all arise out of (1) the same transaction or transactions con. nected with the same subject of action; (2) contract express or implied; (3) injuries with or without force to person or property or either; (4) injuries to character; (5) claims to recover real property with or without damages for the withholding thereof; (6) claims to recover personal property with or without damages for the withholding thereof; (7) claims against a trustee by virtue of a contract or by operation of law. But the causes of action so united must all belong to one of these classes and must affect all the parties to the action and not require different places of trial and must be separately stated.
In the case under consideration the complaint was in effect an action to enforce the penalty of the security bond and for that reason any causes of action for damages growing out of the arrest might properly have been joined therein; and if the plaintiffs could properly unite such causes of action in their complaint it follows that they should not be limited in the trial by compulsory election between the causes of action they had alleged.
And the trial court's error in the foregoing respect was prejudicial to the rights and interests of the plaintiff, for in order to maintain their count for malicious prosecution it was necessary for plaintiffs to prove malice and want of probable cause for the arrest while no such proof would have been necessary to sustain an action for false imprisonment. In this respect the remark of the trial judge which is found in the records is pertinent, viz:
That there might have been some question about the illegality of the arrest but that the election to proceed on the second count required plaintiffs to prove lack of probable cause and malice.
All the facts pertaining to the arrest were necessarily introduced in evidence in the court below and are in the record here. It is therefore proper for us to discuss the question of the legality of the arrest complained of.

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