Page:Harvard Law Review Volume 5.djvu/141

EQUITY JURISDICTION. 12 5 merely granting relief without a suit, the granting of it on the motion of the plaintiff in the administration suit was granting relief without a suit to a party who could not have obtained it by a suit. As soon as it was settled that all actions at law by creditors against an executo«" would be stopped as soon as a decree was obtained against u>.n for the administration of the testator's estate, of course it followed that, in the like event, all other suits in equity against him, prosecuted by creditors for their own ex- clusive benefit, would also be stopped. 1 Nor did the stopping of the latter involve any such difficulties of procedure as did the stopping of the former; for there was but one Court of Chancery, and all the courts of equity held by the different judges were branches of the Court of Chancery; and, therefore, when an administration decree was obtained against an executor in one suit, the proceedings in every other suit in equity against him were stayed upon a motion made by him in that suit. Moreover, since the passage of the Judicature Acts, what was always true of courts of equity has become true of courts of common law as well; for both classes of courts are now but branches of one Supreme Court. An injunction, therefore, is no longer necessary to stay the proceedings in an action at law against an executor; but a stay can be obtained upon a motion made by the ex- ecutor in the action which . is sought to be stayed. At length, therefore, every executor acquired the means of having the personal estate of his testator administered in equity, and of having it divided among the several persons who had claims upon it, according to their respective rights as they stood at the time of the testator's death, and that too in spite of any- thing that the testator's creditors could do with a view to obtain- ing a priority over each other. 1 There may be two concurrent suits in equity against an executor, both of which are for the administration of the testator's estate ; and in that case, while neither suit can be stayed until a decree is obtained in the other, it does not follow that, when a decree is obtained in one, the other will be stayed. If the suit in which a decree is first obtained embraces everything which the other suit embraces, so that the plaintiff in the latter can have everything that he seeks in his own suit by coming in under the decree already made, then the proceedings in the other suit will be stayed. Otherwise, the latter suit will be permitted to go on. And if that embraces everything which is em- braced in the suit in which the decree has been obtained, the proceedings in the latter will be stayed. See Coysgarne v. Jones, Ambl.613; Law v. Rigby, 4 Bro. C. C. 60; Pott v. Gallini, 1 S. & St. 206 ; Jackson v. Leaf, 1 Jac. & W. 229.