Case ID: mass_166/html/0096-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Barker, J.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

William A. Saunders vs. James Huntington.
    Middlesex.
    March 23, 1896.
    May 20, 1896.
    Present: Field, C. J., Allen, Holmes, Morton, & Barker, JJ.
    
      Injunction to restrain Prosecution of Action at Law.
    
    If a person lias a complete remedy at law by pleading his discharge in an action at law, a bill in equity brought by him to restrain the plaintiff in the action at law from prosecuting the same is rightly dismissed.
    Bill in equity, to restrain the defendant from prosecuting an action at law to recover the amount of two judgments. Trial in the Superior Court, before Mason, C. J., who dismissed the bill, on the ground that the plaintiff had a complete remedy at law by pleading his discharge in bankruptcy in the action at law; and the plaintiff appealed to this court. The facts appear in the opinion.
    
      W. B. Durant, for the plaintiff.
    
      J. Huntington, pro se.
    
   Barker, J.

The decree was right. The discharge in bankruptcy is a defence to the suit upon the judgments. See Huntington v. Saunders, ante, 92. No reason is shown why the remedy at law is not adequate and complete in the present instance. We express no opinion upon the question whether the plaintiff could maintain a bill for equitable relief if the judgments were such that executions upon them might issue, and if executions had been threatened or issued. See Boynton v. Ball, 121 U. S. 457. The case is remitted to the Superior Court, such decree to be entered in accordance with the opinion as equity may demand. So ordered.