Page:Harvard Law Review Volume 5.djvu/125

109 EQUITY JURISDICTION. 109 may be administered without his knowledge; but that is no more than might happen if the estate were administered by the executor out of court. The administration of an estate cannot be delayed forever, because all claims against it may not have been brought in; and if the executor wait a reasonable length of time, or as long as the law requires him to wait, and use all other reasonable precautions, or all such as the law requires, and then proceeds to distribute the estate, no claim of which he then had no knowledge can afterwards be enforced against him. 1 Can it be said that it is inconsistent with the true principles of procedure, and, therefore, injurious to the public, to permit a suit, brought by A against B, to be used as a means of compelling payment of a claim of C against B ? In the mode and under the circumstances now supposed, it seems not. It is to be observed that C's claim does not affect the suit at all until the latter gets into the Master's office. In the Master's office C's claim can cause no difficulty, as the proceedings there are independent of the other proceedings in the suit. The Master simply carries out the direc- tions contained in the decree, and such directions are all that he need know of the suit. Nor is the reference to the Master caused by C's claim, as it would be necessary in any event. Of course C's claim will cause A some delay in the Master's office, but, for the reason before stated, A cannot complain of that inconvenience. Will C's claim cause any inconvenience in the subsequent pro- ceedings in the cause? The only thing that will remain to be done, after the Master's report has been made and confirmed, will be for the court to make its final decree. Undoubtedly, it is a cardinal rule that the relief given in a suit must be confined to the parties to that suit, and generally it must be confined to the plain- tiff or plaintiffs. Moreover, as a rule, when there are more plain- tiffs than one in a suit, they must, for all the purposes of the suit, constitute a unit, as a court of equity will not give separate and independent relief to each of several plaintiffs ; and yet, in the case now supposed, the court must, by its final decree, give sepa- rate and independent relief, as well to the plaintiff as to each of the persons who have established claims before the Master. The 1 The proposition in the text was stated on the authority of Chelsea Water Works Co. v. Cooper, 1 Esp. 275; but it seems that it cannot, as a general proposition, be sup- ported. See 2 Williams, Executors (8th ed.), 1354; supra, p. 105. But see 22 & 23 Vict., c. 35, s. 29.