## Facts

- William B. Jones bought a Plymouth sedan under a financing arrangement consisting of a note and a conditional sales contract retaining title in the seller until the debt was paid.
- The note required 12 monthly installments and contained an acceleration clause making the entire unpaid balance immediately due upon default of any installment.
- The conditional sales contract was assigned to Morris Plan Bank of Portsmouth, and the note was endorsed and delivered to the bank.
- Jones failed to pay the May and June installments; the bank sued in a local court and obtained a judgment for those two installments, which Jones paid in full.
- After Jones failed to pay the July installment, the bank filed a second action for that installment; Jones pleaded res judicata, and the bank took a nonsuit.
- On September 7, 1935, the bank, without Jones’s consent, took the car from the street near his home, later sold it, and applied the proceeds to the note.
- Jones sued the bank in the Circuit Court of the City of Suffolk for conversion; after Jones presented his evidence, the trial court struck it and entered judgment for the bank.

## Issues

1. Whether the acceleration clause made the obligation a single, entire cause of action upon the first default, requiring one action for the whole matured debt.
2. Whether the bank’s first judgment for only two installments impermissibly split the cause of action and barred later enforcement of the remaining balance.
3. Whether, if further enforcement was barred, the bank lacked the right to repossess and sell the car, making its taking a conversion.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court of Appeals of Virginia reversed the judgment for the bank.
- The court held the note and conditional sales contract operated as one contract for enforcement purposes once default triggered acceleration.
- Because the first default accelerated the entire balance, the bank had one cause of action for the whole debt and could not sue for part and later pursue the remainder.
- The bank’s initial suit and judgment for only two installments barred further recovery on the accelerated debt and defeated the bank’s asserted right to repossess under the title-retention arrangement.
- Jones’s evidence was sufficient to support a conversion claim; striking the evidence was error, and the case was remanded.

## Legal Principles

- When an acceleration clause makes the entire unpaid balance immediately due upon default, the creditor’s claim becomes single and entire.
- A plaintiff may not split a single cause of action; a judgment on part of an indivisible, matured claim bars later actions for the remainder when the same evidence would support both.
- Where a conditional sales contract retains title solely to secure payment of the debt, loss or bar of the enforceable debt defeats the creditor’s right to repossess based on retained title.
- A repossession and sale without the owner’s consent can constitute conversion when the repossessing party lacks a continuing right to possession.

## Conclusion

The court held that the bank’s decision to sue for only two installments after acceleration split an indivisible claim, barring further enforcement and eliminating any contractual right to repossess; the bank’s later taking and sale of the automobile could therefore support liability for conversion.


Jones v. Morris Plan Bank of Portsmouth, 168 Va. 284, 191 S.E. 608 (Va. 1937)