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estate for payment of legacies. The administrator has no title to the land, except by virtue of his license to sell.

When two parties claim title to land, the residuary legatees on the one hand, claiming under the will, and the husband on the other hand, claiming notwithstanding the will, the rights of these parties cannot be settled in a bill in equity in the nature of a bill of interpleader.

It is nowhere held that a party in interest under a trust can maintain a bill, in the nature of a bill of interpleader, against the trustee and an adverse claimant under the trust.

A trustee under a will may bring his bill in the nature of a bill of interpleader, and obtain instructions from the court as to his duty, when different parties are making adverse claims in relation to trust property, and he is in doubt as to their rights.

Plaintiffs who have neglected the opportunity which the statute gives them to bring the question of licensing the administrator to sell before the court by appeal, have the right to protection in equity against the consequences of their own neglect.

A bill of interpleader will lie only when two parties claim of a third the same duty or debt by virtue of some privity existing between them.

If a person deposit money or property in the hands of another, not as a stakeholder for both parties, but as his agent or bailee, and the property is claimed by a third person under an independent title, the agent or bailee cannot maintain a bill of interpleader.

Where a tenant is liable to pay rent, and a third person claims it by a title independent of the landlord, the tenant cannot maintain a bill of interpleader. But if the third person claims under the landlord, so that the question arises from the act of the landlord, this creates a privity with the tenant, and the bill will lie.

In cases of adverse independent titles, the party holding the property must defend himself as well as he can at law, and he is not entitled to the assistance of a court of equity; for that would be to assume the right to try merely legal

titles upon a controversy between different parties, where there is no privity of contract between them and the third person who calls for an interpleader.

A debtor cannot deprive his creditor of his remedies at law, and force him into equity, merely because a third person claims the fund or debt by a title not derived from the creditor. His remedy is at law, and it would seem that, if either of the claimants should sue him, he could protect himself by notifying the other claimant to come in and defend the suit; and that he, being the real party in interest, would be bound by the judgment.

It was not intended to enlarge the right to bring a bill of interpleader strictly so called, but to enable a party to a controversy to bring a bill in the nature of a bill of interpleader, to adjust the whole matter in controversy in a case where a judgment at law between two of the parties would leave open to one or both a controversy with a third party.

On a bill of interpleader, which assumes that the plaintiff is merely a stakeholder, the plaintiff cannot be heard. A plaintiff cannot have an order that the defendants interplead, when one important question to be tried is, whether, by reason of his own act, he is under a liability to each of them.

When a person, without collusion, is subjected to a double demand to pay an acknowledged debt, it is the object of a bill of interpleader to relieve him of the risk of deciding who is entitled to the money.

According to the most exacting authorities, where the adverse titles of the claimants are both derived from a common source, it is sufficient to authorize an interpleader.

The injunction on an interpleading bill does not, like the common injunction, leave the plaintiff at law at liberty to demand a plea, and proceed to judgment, but it stays all proceedings. The plaintiff in an interpleading bill admits that he has no defence, and makes an affidavit that he does not collude with either party; the protection that he has is, that he be relieved from their proceedings against him, whether at law or in equity, as soon as his diligence enables

the court to do so. There are some cases where the injunction would be quite useless, unless it could be obtained immediately.

The principle of a bill of interpleader is to protect the party, not only from being compelled to pay, but also from the vexation attending the discussion of all the suits that may be instituted.

After judgment at law, and after the right is thus determined, a court of equity cannot interfere upon the footing of a bill of interpleader. The complainant might have made his defence at law, or at all events, should have filed his bill before judgment; because of the familiar rule, that a court of equity cannot give relief when the party might have made a defence at law.

A court of equity has no power to correct the errors in judgment of a court of law; that belongs to the appellate tribunal.

A judgment against a garnishee upon an attachment, after an assignment of his note, will not form a bar in his favor, in an action by the assignee. If the garnishee answer with the requisite caution, he will run no risk. If he state the fact, that he executed a note to the debtor of the attaching creditor, but he does not know who holds it, or whether it be assigned or not,-still more, if he state that it has been assigned, and that he has received notice of it, no judgment upon the attachment can be rendered against him. Of course he must answer according to the fact. But if he neglects so obvious a precaution, he is but in the situation of every other defendant, who neglects his proper defence at law, at the time he has the means of making it.

There is no rule of a court of equity to preclude a defendant at law, from obtaining relief in an interpleader suit.

A plaintiff having parted with the goods, stands no longer in a situation entitling him to put the claimants to an interpleader. It is not enough to say that, in the result of such a proceeding, the party entitled might have the value of his property; he is entitled to it specifically.

A plaintiff, not an indifferent stakeholder, but having

a personal question to maintain with the defendant, if he seeks an injunction, must obtain it, not upon the principle of interpleader, but upon an order for time, or upon the

answer.

A party acknowledging himself a debtor may, when subjected to a double demand for payment, have relief on showing that there is a question to be tried and that he is ignorant which claimant has the better right. The mere pretext of a conflicting claim is not enough to show that the plaintiff is in any danger of loss from an inability to determine to whom the debt in question should be paid.

A party claiming the legal title to real estate cannot use a bill in equity in the nature of a bill of interpleader as an action of ejectment. Whenever a court of law is competent to take cognizance of a right, and has power to proceed to a judgment which affords a plain, adequate, and complete remedy, without the aid of a court of equity, the plaintiff must proceed at law, because the defendant has a constitutional right to a trial by jury.

A bill, to justify its pretensions as a bill of strict interpleader, should give so much of a contract, and its execution and payments under it, as would demonstrate to the court that there was only a certain amount due, with reference to which the complainant was simply a stakeholder. If on complainant's presentation of the case, it appears on the face of the bill that it is not a proper case for interpleader, demurrer will lie. But if the bill should show such a case, a defendant may, by answer, deny the allegations in the complainant's bill, or set up distinct facts in bar of the suit, and such issue is to be tried according to the practice of the court.

If the bill alleges that the plaintiff holds the bonds as treasurer of the corporation, and that the defendant corporators claim by a title paramount to the corporation, it cannot be maintained. Demurrer will be sustained, upon the ground that the bill contains no averments in respect to the possession of the plaintiff which show that he is entitled to maintain the bill.

The rule is that if complainant states a case in his bill which

shows that one defendant is entitled to the debt, and the other is not, both defendants may demur.

The mere allegations of a bill, however strong, do not authorize a decree that the parties interplead. They may deny in their answers, and sustain by proof their denial, every averment upon which the bill rests for relief as a bill of interpleader. When the answer denies the facts upon which the bill depends as a bill of interpleader, the plaintiff is put to his proof before the case is ready for a decree as to whether the respondents should be required to plead.

A bill of interpleader should be sworn to, but the omission of an affidavit is an amendable defect.

[Bill to Remove Cloud on Title.]

It would be very unreasonable that an old bond which cast a shade over the title to the assets of an ancester, should be suffered to continue a dead weight upon property that may have descended to a plaintiff. It is, however, not easy to extract from books any precise rule by which the jurisdiction of the court is, in such cases, to be exercised. The bond, most probably, could not be enforced at law, though on the face of it it appeared to be an absolute bond for the payment of money. The lapse of years, if not most satisfactorily accounted for, would form of itself a conclusive bar to a recovery. Perhaps the cases may all be reconciled on the general principle that the exercise of the power of cancellation is to be regulated by sound discretion as the circumstances of the individual case may dictate; and that the resort to equity, to be sustained, must be expedient, either because the instrument is liable to abuse from its negotiable nature, or because the defence not arising on its face, may be difficult, or uncertain at law, or from some other special circumstance peculiar to the case, and rendering a resort to a court of equity highly proper, and clear of all suspicion of any design to promote expense and litigation. If, however, the defect appears on the bond itself, the interference of the court will still depend on a question of expediency, and not on a question of jurisdiction,

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