Page:Harvard Law Review Volume 5.djvu/133

117 EQ UITY JURISDICTION, 1 1 7 an effect even beyond what has been stated ; for they convert the bill from a bill seeking a personal decree against the executor into a bill merely for the administration of a fund. It is clearly impos- sible upon such a bill for any one but the plaintiff to have a per- sonal decree against the executor; and it is as clearly impossible to give the plaintiff any relief which cannot also be given to all the other creditors. Accordingly, upon a creditor's bill, filed on behalf of the plaintiff and all the other creditors of the testator, no personal decree is ever made against the executor; nor, indeed, is any final decree whatever made against him, the estate being fully administered as to him when it has been converted into money, and the money paid into court. Moreover, as the bill seeks, not a personal decree, but the administration of a fund, there is no propriety in the executor's admitting assets (the only object of which is to lay the foundation for a personal decree) ; and still less will an admission of assets by the executor exempt him from giving an account. He is not, therefore, given the option of accounting or admitting assets, but he is required to account unconditionally. 1 Of course the technical objection to requiring an executor to pay all the money in his hands into court, upon a bill by a pecun- iary legatee, holds still more strongly in the case of a bill by a creditor on behalf of himself and all the other creditors ; but it has been disregarded in the latter case as well as in the former. 2 As a creditor may file a bill on behalf of himself and all the other creditors, so a pecuniary legatee may file a bill on behalf of 'himself and all other pecuniary legatees. As, however, a bill by a pecuniary legatee involves the administration of the estate equally, whether it be filed for the plaintiff's exclusive benefit, or " on behalf of the plaintiff and all the other pecuniary legatees," unless, in the former case, the executor admits assets, the only effect of the words quoted is to convert the bill from a bill seeking a personal decree against the executor into a bill for the adminis- 1 It follows, therefore, that a creditor should never leave it in doubt whether his bill is for his own exclusive benefit, or on behalf of himself and other creditors. See Reeve v. Goodwin, 10 Jur. 1050. In Woodgate v. Field, 2 Hare, 211, where the bill was by a creditor, on behalf of himself and other creditors, there was not only an admission of as- sets in the defendant's answer, but, on that admission, the plaintiff was permitted at the hearing to take a personal decree against the defendant. It seems, however, impossible to support the decision. 2 See infra, p. 1 28 et seqq.