58 Md. 477 | Md. | 1882
delivered the opinion of the Court.
This is a creditors’ hill for the sale of a decedent’s real estate to pay his debts. Two of the creditors, John Simms and Towner, file the hill for themselves and “all others, creditors of Thomas Eawcett, of Montgomery county, deceased, who will come in and contribute to the expenses of the suit.” Some of the defendants are residents of the State, and have been reached with process, others are nonresidents and have been brought in by order of publication duly published. The hill was filed 4th February, 1815.
Inasmuch as it has been repeatedly held by this Court, that in order to receive the benefit of the Statute of Limi
In allowing the plea of limitations interposed, to prevail against the Simms judgment, so far as the defendants who answered and relied on the Statute are concerned, we think the Circuit Court was right. That judgment was rendered on the 12th of November, 1860, and was without stay of execution. In Kirkland & Von Sacks vs. Krebs, 34 Md., 93, this Court expressly decided that the time covered by the stay laws of 1861 and 1862 was not to be deducted from the statutory period of limitations, and that those laws did not affect the running of the Statute. Although the Court below allowed the period of eighteen months covered by these statutes, the judgment of Simms was found to be nine months too old for allowance. The seventh section of Article 57 of the Code of Public General Laws does, moreover, unequivocally allow the period of eighteen months after the death of any debtor and
In our opinion the appellants have no ground of complaint of the Circuit Court’s ruling, in respect to the claims and judgments offered in evidence in support of the allegation, that the decedent was indebted to others in addition to the complainants. Those claims were not then in issue. At the hearing, the answering defendants had pleaded limitations to those claims, but those creditors had not come in by petition, or in any way, and set up their demands so as to entitle and justify the defendants in pleading limitations and claiming a decision. The bill expressly stated, that it was filed for the benefit of all who would come in and contribute to the expenses of the suit; but it would have been so regarded if‘ that specific statement had not been made. McCormick vs. Gibson, 10 G. & J., 65. These judgment creditors had done nothing tending to make them bound as parties for any costs, and were not then before the Court for adjudication of any claims they might have ; but the appellants have no interest in their claims, and do not represent them in any such sense as justifies their appealing, because of any supposed
In the view we take, the questions of evidence raised by the exceptions, are immaterial and need not he passed upon.
Affirmed without prejudice.