MULTIPLICITY OF ACTIONS, or Numerous and unnecessary at tempts to litigate the same right. For such cases equity provides a proceeding called a bill of peace, q. v., and a court of common law may grant a rule for the consolidation of different actions ; L. R. 2 Ch. 8 ; Story, Eq. PL 234; Bisph. Eq. 415.
It is not a ground of equity jurisdiction where the right is disputed between two per sons only and such right has not been es tablished at law; Cleland v; Campbell, 78 Ill. App. 624; something more than a mere indebtedness to a great many different per sons on disconnected causes of action, is necessary; Rosenbaum v. Kershaw, 40 Ill. App. 659; there must be different persons assailing the Same right and a mere repeti tion of the same trespass on the same per son; Taylor v. Pierce, 174 Ill. 9, 50 N. E. 1109. Equity can be invoked only when the suits will be against the same person ; Peo ple's N. B. v. Marye, 191 U. S. 272, 24 Sup. Ct. 68, 48 L. Ed. 180.
Where the interests of all the parties may be well determined in one action, equity will uphold such action ; Coleman v. Phelps, 57 How. Prac. (N. Y.) 393 ; equity may be in voked by either plaintiff or defendant; Smith v. Bank, 69 N. H. 254, 45 Atl. 1082 ; or where a large number of complainants have iden tical claims against a large number of com mon carriers, alleged to be in combination to inflict on each complainant a common wrong; Tift v. R. Co., 123 Fed. 789; or where 57 persons executed notes to induce a railroad to build through their town and the validity of the notes depended upon the same principles of law ; Crawford v. R. Co., 83 Miss. 708, 36 South. 82, 102 Am. St. Rep. 476 ; or where a large number of persons claim rights to use the waters of a stream ; Crawford Co. v. Hathaway, 67 Neb. 325, 93
N. W. 781, 60 L. R. A. 889, 108 Am. St. Rep. 647; or in case of a bill to maintain a right of way against the encroachments of several adjoining owners; Stockwell v. Fitzgerald, 70 Vt. 468, 41 Atl. 504; but not where sev eral makers of a non-negotiable note pro cured by fraud could be independently sued; Johnson v. Swanke, 128 Wis. 68, 107 N. W. 481, 5 L. R. A. (N. S.) 1048, 8 Ann. Cas. 544; or where sundry persons licensed to cut timber from certain parts of the public domain, cut and carried away timber from other land; U. S. v. Devel. Co., 200 U. S. 451, 26 Sup. Ct. 318, 50 L. Ed. 550.
Equity will take jurisdiction only where it appears from the bill that the rights of all the parties can be as fully determined in a single suit as they could be in several suits ; Eureka & K. R. Co. v. R. Co., 109 Fed. 509, 48 C. C. A. 517. A bill to recover real estate will be dismissed where the defendants can be joined in one action at law ; McGuire V. City Co., 105 Fed. 677, 44 C. C. A. 670.
An adequate remedy at law does not exist where a multiplicity of actions is required to obtain complete relief ; ,Mut. L. Ins. Co. v. Blair, 130 Fed. Equity will not en courage the splitting of causes of action and needless litigation; German American Sem. v. Kiefer, 43 Mich. 105, 4 N. W. 636.
In order to make multiplicity of suits a ground for the interposition of equity, more than one suit must have been commenced, and the court should not interfere unless it is clearly necessary to protect complainant from ,continued and vexatious litigation ; Boise Art. H. & C. W. Co. v. Boise, 213 U. S. 276, 29 Sup. Ct. 426, 53 L. Ed. 796.