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2 Johns. Ch. 281

Eldridge v. Hill

New York Court of Chancery

Decided December 30, 1816

New York Court of Chancery · decided 1816-12-30

[ * 282 ] THE bill stated, that the plaintiff is seised in fee of lot No. 13, in Young’s patent, in Sharon, in Schoharie county, and that he, and those under whom he holds, have been in possession for upwards of twenty years. That the defendant Hill possesses lot No. 41, adjoining it, under the defendant Murray. That Wm. Honey, who possessed lot No. 41, about six or seven years ago, erected a carding machine, within a few feet of the line between them.

Key passage — most relied on by later courts

“a bill of peace, enjoining litigation at law, seems to have been allowed only in one of these two cases; either, where the plaintiff has already, satisfactorily, established his right at law, or where the persons who controvert it are so numerous as to render an issue, under the direction of this court, indispensable to embrace all the parties concerned, and to save multiplicity of suits.”

quoted by 1 later decision, including Fidelity Union Trust Co. v. Cochrane

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1816-12-30

How this case has been cited

Cited by 17 later decisions — most recently May 1934

16 state decisions

401816182018301840185018601870188018901900191019201930decided

Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

View the full empirical analysis of this case →

The Chancellor.

¶1[ *283 ]

¶2A bill of peace, enjoining litigation at law, seems to have been allowed only in one of these two cases; either where the plaintiff has already, satisfactorily, established his right at law, or where the persons who controvert it are so numerous as to render an issue, under the direction of this Court, indispensable to embrace all the parties concerned, and to save multiplicity of suits. (Lord Bath v. Sherwin, 1 Bro. P. C. 266. Ewelme v. Andover. 1 Vern. 266. Leighton v. Leighton, 1 P. Wms. 671. Trustees of Huntington v. Nicholl, 3 Johns. Rep. 566. Tenham v. Herbert, 2 Atk. 483.) In the case in Atkyns, Lord Hardwicke refused to interfere between two individuals, until the right was first tried at law. In the present *case, there had been but one trial at law, and that one was decided against the plaintiff. The controversy is between him and a single individual, and is pending for decision in the Supreme Court. If the defendant Hill continues to harass him with fresh suits at law, it is because a new cause of action (as he alleges) continues to arise daily, by the continuation of the nuisance. No case goes so far as to stop these continued suits between two single individuals, so long as the alleged cause of action is continued, and there has been no final or satisfactory trial and decision at law upon the merits.

¶3Injunction denied.

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