CONTRIBUTION. At Common Law. The payment by each or any one of several parties who are liable in company with others of his proportionate part of the whole liability or loss, to one or more of the parties so liable upon whom the whole loss has fallen or who has been compelled to discharge the whole liability. 1 Bibb, Ky. 562 ; 4 Johns. Ch. N. Y. 545 ; 4 Bouvier, Inst. n. 3935.
2. A right to contribution exists in the case of debtors who owe a debt jointly which has been collected from one of them. 4 Jones, No. C. 71; 32 Me. 381 ; 13 Mo. 561 ; 4 Ga. 545 ; 19 Vt. 59 ; 3 Den. N. Y. 130 ; 7 Humphr. Tenn. 385. See 1 Ohio St. 327. It also exists where land charged with a legacy, or the por tion of a posthumous child, descends or is de vised to several persons, when the share of each is held liable for a proportionate part. 3 Munf. Va., 29 ; 1 Johns. Ch. N. Y. 425 ; 1 Cush. Mass. 107 ; 8 B. Monr. Ky. 419. As to contribution under the maritime law, see GENERAL AVERAGE. See, generally, 4 Gray, Mass. 75 ; 34 Me. 205 ; 1 Mich. 202 ; 4 Gill, Md. 166 ; 11 Penn. St. 325 ; 8 B. Monr. Ky. 137. There is no contribution among wrong doers. 9 Ind. 248 • 10 Cush. Mass. 287 • ' 2 Ohio St. 203; 18 Ohio, 1; 11 Paige, Ch. N.
Y. 18.
3. A debtor liable to contribution is not responsible upon a contract, but is so in equity. But courts of common law in mo dern times have assumed a jurisdiction to compel contribution among sureties in the absence of any positive contract, on the ground of an implied assumpsit, and each of the sureties may be sued for his respective quota or proportion. White, Lead. Cas. 06 ; 7 Gill, Md. 34, 85 ; 17 Mo. 150. The remedy in equity is, however, much more effective. 12 Ala. N. s. 225 ; 2 Rich. Eq. So. C. 15. For example, a surety who pays an entire debt can, in equity, compel the solvent sureties to contribute towards the payment of the entire debt, 1 Chanc. Cas. 246; Finch, 15, 203; while at law he can recover no more than an aliquot part of the whole, regard being had to the number of co-sureties. 2 Bos. & P. 268 ; 6 Barnew. & C. 697 ; 32 Me. 381.
In Civil Law. A partition by which the creditors of an insolvent debtor divide among themselves the proceeds of his property pro portionably to the amount of their respective credits. La. Civ. Code, art. 2522, n. 10. It is a division pro rata. Merlin, Rdpert.