Hopkins v. Medley

Citations

• 99 Ill. 509
• 1881 Ill. LEXIS 204

Syllabus

<p>1. Partition — defences the same, whether in law or equity. The rights of the parties to a suit for partition, whether brought at law or in equity, may as effectually be enforced in one forum as the other. The only difference be-. tween the two relates to the mode of procedure.</p> <p>2. Chancery — enjoining legal proceedings. It is a familiar principle that courts of equity will not interpose by injunction to restrain the enforcement of a judgment at law, where the rights of the complainant might have been enforced and protected in the trial at law to the same extent as in a court of equity, where no fraud, accident or mistake has intervened to deprive him of his rights in the legal forum.</p> <p>3. Where the defendant in a petition for partition, set up certain equitable defences, which were disallowed, and on his appeal the decree was reversed and the cause remanded, and pending the appeal the defendant filed a bill in equity against the petitioner, setting up the proceedings under the ' petition and the same equitable matters relied upon as a defence in the proceeding at law, and praying for an injunction to restrain further proceedings under the judgment at law, and for a partition according to the equities of the parties: Held, that the bill was properly dismissed on demurrer, the judgment at law, as to the defences interposed, being conclusive until reversed in a direct proceeding for that purpose, and that where an appeal was taken, the party must abide the result of it.</p>