1 N.J. Eq. 31 | New York Court of Chancery | 1830
The matter comes before the court on an application for an injunction. A number of objections have been urged against the bill in the shape in which it is presented before the court. And among others, it is objected, that this is not one of the cases in which the complainants may lawfully join in the prosecution of the suit. That their interests, instead of being joint or common, are separate, independent and distinct; and being blended together, the bill is multifarious and therefore bad. This is the first point I propose to consider. The question who are and who are not necessary or proper parties to a bill in equity, and what rights may be brought together in one suit, is one that sometimes occasions perplexity. While care must be taken on the one hand, to bring all proper parties before the court., the same care should be taken on the other, that none are brought there whose rights are not to be in some way bound by the decree that may be made. So too, while the court will, for the sake of avoiding a multiplicity of actions, take cognizance of suits in which many rights, having reference to one subject matter, are united; it must be careful not to admit several plaintiffs to demand by one bill, several matters perfectly distinct and unconnected.
The rules of pleading in a court'of equity, are not so technical and precise as in the courts of law. The generad powers of this court, audits peculiar modes of administering relief, authorize and require a greater degree of liberality than would be expedient in the courts of common law. Still, when principles have by repeated adjudications become settled, and especially when they are founded in justice and the fitness of things, it is quite as important that those principles should be preserved in this as in any other court.
To ascertain and apply the correct rule to this case, it is necessary to see precisely what the case is. The complainants complain of an injury which they have sustained by the acts of the defendant, in excavating their canal through the lands of complainants. They are several owners, having distinct rights in the several tracts of land through which the canal passes. The inju-
In Ward v. The Duke of Northumberland, 2 Anst. 469, the court says, that the cases where unconnected parties may join in a suit, are, where there is one common interest in them all, centering in the point in issue in the cause. In that case a bill was filed against two defendants jointly as executors, and against one of them as heir, for an account under an agreement entered into with the ancestor. It contained matters having no other con-nexion, than that one of the defendants was a party in them all. Separate demurrers were put in and allowed.
Ld. Redesdale, in Whaley v. Dawson, 2 Scho. and Lef. 367, held this principle; that where there was a general right claimed by the bill covering the whole case, the bill would be good, though the defendants had separate and distinct rights: but if the subjects of the suits were in themselves.perfectly distinct, a demurrer
Tt was admitted by one of the complainants’ counsel, that the company liad a right to take the land under the charter, paying for it a fair compensation. And it was urged that this charter privilege was in the nature of a contract; that under this contract the defendants entered ; and that the case presented is one of a contract for the sale of lands, with a part performance on one side. This view of the matter does not obviate the difficulty. The bill is obnoxious to the same objection, whether the demand made by it be considered as arising ex contractu or ex delicto. It is well settled that a bill by several to compel the specific performance of a contract for the sale of real estate, in which the complainants hold distinct rights, cannot be sustained. This conclusion renders it unnecessary, and perhaps improper, for me to look into any other parts of the case. On the ground that the bill is multifarious,
The injunction is refused.