23 Ky. 591 | Ky. Ct. App. | 1828
delivered the Opinion of the Court.
The Fayette Paper Manufacturing company was incorporated by act of assembly, and a clause inserted in the charter, that all stockholders at the date when a debt was contracted, should be bound individually for the debts, in case the company failed.
The company became insolvent, and Samuel Farrar, Joseph Nichols, Elizabeth Cox and Robert Holmes, each having obtained judgments at law, in which unsuccessful executions were prosecuted, brought their several bills in equity against the stockholders, and obtained their several decrees for the proportion of their debts against each stockholder, and a joint decree against all for costs.
To reverse each of these decrees, David Castle-man, one of the stockholders, issued, his several
Without leaving it to be inferred that we admit that either of these writs in their origin were of any validity, we suppose the correct meaning of tlvc act oi assembly which brought the causes here, to be, that they should stand in the same situation, and ]lave f|le sam8 rules applied to them, as would be ’applied if they had been originally brought here, by writs of,erfor precisely similar to the process by which they were brought in the New Court. So that although the causes are brought here by act of assembiy,and not by writ from this court, they should be heard or disposed of exactly as if there were Slich wr*ts- Any rule, therefore, which would p re-vent the causes being heard on the merits, if these were valid writs of error, ought to prevent us from trying them as they stand.
The decree for costs in each of these cases is joint, alK^ this recluires a joint writ of error, even if the other parts of the decrees were several, which is not admitted. But such writs ought to be quashed un*ess ^ieY can he amended. It is true, the law as it stood when these suits began in the new court, did allow, as it yet does, amendments in writs of error, ¡,y inserting either plaintiffs or defendants. But who ó' this case shall amend? Shall it be Castleman, or Dallam? It might be a dispute between them, not easily settled, which should dismiss and pay costs, an(l which should save his suits by amendment, But suppose that these two plaintiff? in error could