Where an equity cause may be finally decided as between the
parties litigant without bringing others before the court who
would, generally speaking, be necessary parties, such parties maybe
dispensed with in the circuit court if its proofs cannot reach them
or if they are citizens of another state.
But if the rights of those not before the court are inseparably
connected with the claim of the parties litigant, so that a final
decision cannot be made between them without affecting the rights
of the absent parties, the peculiar constitution of the circuit
court forms no ground for dispensing with such parties.
But the court may, in its discretion, where the purposes of
justice require it, retain jurisdiction of the cause on an
injunction bill as between the parties regularly before it until
the plaintiffs have had an opportunity of litigating their
controversy with the other parties in a competent tribunal, and if
it finally appears by the judgment of such tribunal that the
plaintiffs are equitably entitled to the interest claimed by the
other parties, may proceed to a final decree upon the merits.
Page 25 U. S. 194
MR. JUSTICE TRIMBLE delivered the opinion of the Court.
This is an appeal from the decree of the Circuit Court for the
District of Ohio dismissing generally, with costs, the bill of the
appellants, who were plaintiffs in that court.
The suit was a contest for land in the district set apart on the
northwest side of the Ohio for the satisfaction of the bounty lands
due to the officers and soldiers of the Virginia Line on
continental establishment in the Revolutionary War.
The plaintiffs set up claim to the land by virtue and under a
survey, No. 537, in the name of John Campbell. It appears that John
Campbell before his death, made his last will and testament,
whereby he devised his land warrants, entries, and surveys in the
military district to Col. Richard Taylor and others, his executors,
in trust for the children of the testator's sister, Sarah Beard,
and that Taylor alone qualified as executor, and took upon himself
the trust. Taylor never conveyed or assigned the warrants, entries,
or surveys to Mrs. Beard's children, but permitted them, as the
bill charges, to take the management of them into their own
hands.
Elias Langham made sundry executory contracts with Mrs. Beard's
children, after they arrived at full age, which contracts are set
out in the bill, whereby, as the complainants
Page 25 U. S. 195
allege, Langham became equitably entitled to survey No. 537, and
afterwards sold and made deeds of conveyance for the land to the
complainants, who, in consequence of their purchases from Langham,
took possession of and improved the land.
Thomas S. Hinde, having purchased and procured an assignment of
a military warrant from Col. Richard Taylor, and belonging to him
in his own right, made an entry thereof in Hinde's own name in the
principal surveyor's office, and having caused a survey to be made
thereupon, covering survey No. 537, in the name of Campbell Hinde
obtained a patent for the land from the government.
Being thus clothed with the legal title, Hinde instituted
actions of ejectment in the circuit court against the appellants
and obtained judgments of eviction against them.
They filed their bill praying for an injunction against the
judgments at law, and also praying that Hinde should be decreed to
release and convey to them his legal title, and for general
relief.
The bill charges that Col. Richard Taylor, with full notice that
the appellants were, in virtue of Langham's contract with the
cestuis que trust and Langham's sale to them, equitably
entitled to and in possession of survey No. 537, fraudulently
combined with Hinde and others and improperly and without authority
withdrew the entry on which survey No. 537 had been made, and
reentered and caused it to be surveyed elsewhere, and that Hinde,
availing himself of such improper and unauthorized withdrawal, had
entered, surveyed and patented the land in his own name, he also
having notice of all the circumstances attending the claim of the
appellants, and that Taylor and the Beards refuse to perfect the
survey by obtaining a patent and refuse to convey or transfer it to
the appellants.
The bill also alleges that Langham had become equitably and
legally entitled to the survey No. 537 as a purchaser thereof for
taxes due thereon to the State of Ohio.
Hinde filed his answer in which he denies the charges of fraud
and collusion; insists the land had become vacant by the
withdrawing of the entry in the name of Campbell and by surveying
it elsewhere, and that he had legally appropriated
Page 25 U. S. 196
it by his entry, survey, and grant; he neither admits nor denies
the execution of the contracts alleged between Langham and the
Beards, and puts the complainants upon proof, and he further
insists that such contracts, if made, conferred upon Langham no
equitable title, first because the Beards had no power to sell
without the concurrence of Taylor, the trustee, and secondly
because Langham had obtained the contracts by fraud and had not
paid the consideration stipulated.
Neither Taylor, the trustee, nor the
cestuis que trust,
with whom the complainants allege Langham contracted for the land,
are made defendants, they being out of the limits of the
jurisdiction of the court.
No attempt has been made in the argument to support the validity
of the tax sale, and it may be laid out of the case.
For the appellees it is insisted that the proper parties are not
before the court so as to enable the court to decree upon the
merits of the conflicting claims. And we are all of that opinion.
It is plain that the appellants cannot set up the survey No. 537,
against the appellees' title without first showing themselves
entitled to that survey. They claim that survey not by any
assignment or other instrument investing them with a legal right to
it, but by executory agreements the validity and obligation of
which the parties to them have a right to contest.
We cannot try their validity and decide upon their efficacy by
affirming they confer upon the appellants an equitable right
without manifest prejudice to the rights of those not before the
court. The complainants can derive no claim in equity to the survey
under or through Langham's executory contracts with the Beards
unless these contracts be such as ought to be decreed against them
specifically by a court of equity. How can a court of equity decide
that these contracts ought to be specifically decreed without
hearing the parties to them? Such a proceeding would be contrary to
all the rules which govern courts of equity and against the
principles of natural justice. Taylor too is the legal proprietor
of the warrant by virtue of which the entry and survey No. 537 was
made, and in general the right of removal is incidental to the
right of property. But it is alleged
Page 25 U. S. 197
he has parted with that incidental right, although the general
legal title of ownership remains in him, or that he has exercised
this incidental right fraudulently and improperly to the prejudice
of the appellants.
Can any court justly strip him of this incidental right or
convict him of fraud unheard? Besides, if the court should, by its
decree, compel Hinde to release his legal title to the complainants
upon the grounds that the entry and survey No. 537 are superior to
his title, it would be giving to the complainants that which
belongs to Taylor as trustee and to his
cestuis que trust
unless by their acts and agreements they have parted with their
right to the survey. If the courts of the United States were courts
of general jurisdiction, it could not be doubted that Taylor,
William and Joseph Beard, and Mr. McGowan and wife would be
necessary and indispensable parties without whom no decree upon the
merits could be made. But it is contended that the rule which
prevails in courts of equity generally that all the parties in
interest shall be brought before the court that the matter in
controversy may be finally settled ought not to be adopted by the
courts of the United States because from the peculiar structure of
their limited jurisdiction over persons, the application of the
rule in its full extent would often oust the court of its
acknowledged jurisdiction over the persons and subject before
it.
It is true, this equitable rule is framed by the court of equity
itself, and is subject to its sound discretion. It is not, like the
description of parties, an inflexible rule, the failure to observe
which turns the party out of court merely because it has no
jurisdiction over his cause, but being introduced for the purposes
of justice, is susceptible of considerable modifications for the
promotion of these purposes. Accordingly, this Court, in the case
of
Elemendorf v.
Taylor, 10 Wheat. 167, has said,
"That the rule which requires that all persons concerned in
interest, however remotely, should be made parties to the suit,
though applicable to most cases in the courts of the United States,
is not applicable to all. In the exercise of its discretion, the
court will require the plaintiff to do all in his power to bring
every person concerned in interest before the court. But if the
case may
Page 25 U. S. 198
be completely decided as between the litigant parties, the
circumstance that an interest exists in some other person whom the
process of the court cannot reach, as if such party be the resident
of some other state, ought not to prevent a decree upon its
merits."
This doctrine was applied to the case where a small interest was
outstanding in one not before the court, as tenant in common.
In that case, the right of the party before the court did not
depend upon the right of the party not before the court; each of
their rights stood upon its own independent basis, and the ground
upon which it was necessary, according to the general principle, to
have both before the court was to avoid multiplicity of suits and
to have the whole matter settled at once.
In this case, the complainants have no rights separable from and
independent of the rights of persons not made parties. The rights
of those not before the court lie at the very foundation of the
claim of right by the plaintiffs, and a final decision cannot be
made between the parties litigant without directly affecting and
prejudicing the rights of others not made parties.
We do not put this case upon the ground of jurisdiction, but
upon a much broader ground, which must equally apply to all courts
of equity whatever may be their structure as to jurisdiction. We
put it on the ground that no court can adjudicate directly upon a
person's right without the party's being either actually or
constructively before the court.
We have no doubt the circuit court had jurisdiction between the
complainants and the defendant Hinde so far as to entertain the
bill and grant an injunction against the judgments at law until the
matter could be heard in equity.
And if it had been shown to the circuit court that from the
incapacity of that court to bring all the necessary parties before
it, that court could not decide finally the rights in contest, the
court, in the exercise of a sound discretion, might have retained
the cause, and the injunction, on the application of the
complainants, until they had reasonable time to litigate the
matters of controversy between them and Taylor and the Beards in
the courts of the state or
Page 25 U. S. 199
such other courts as had jurisdiction over them, and if then it
was made to appear by the judgment of a competent tribunal that the
complainants were equitably interested with the rights of Taylor,
the trustee, and the
cestuis que trust in the survey No.
537, the circuit court could have proceeded to decree upon the
merits of the conflicting surveys.
Such a proceeding would seem to be justified by the urgent
necessity of the case in order to prevent a failure of justice, and
the cause would have remained under the control of the circuit
court, so as to have enabled it to prevent unreasonable delay by
the negligence or design of the parties in litigating their rights
before some competent tribunal.
The cause having been brought to a hearing before the circuit
court in its present imperfect state of preparation, that court
could not do otherwise than dismiss the bill; but as no final
decision of the rights of parties could properly be made, the
dismission, instead of being general, ought to have been without
prejudice.
So much of the decree as dismisses the bill generally must
be reversed, and the decree in all things else affirmed, and the
cause is to be remanded to the circuit court with directions to
dismiss the bill without prejudice.