Case Name: Hobart Sprague v. James B. Soule and others
Court: Michigan Supreme Court
Jurisdiction: Michigan
Decision Date: 1876-10-13
Citations: 35 Mich. 35
Docket Number: 
Parties: Hobart Sprague v. James B. Soule and others.
Judges: The other justices concurred.
Reporter: Michigan Reports
Volume: 35
Pages: 34–35

Head Matter:
Hobart Sprague v. James B. Soule and others.
Bill of interpleader: Express agreement with some of the defendants. A bill of interpleader is a bill filed for the protection of a person from whom several persons claim legally or equitably the same thing, debt or duty, but who has incurred no independent liability to any of them, and does not himself claim an interest in the matter; and it will not lie where complainant has incurred an independent liability under an express agreement with some of the defendants.
Heard October 10.
Decided October 13.
Appeal in Chancery from Ottawa Circuit.
Taggart, Simonds & Fletcher and S. IT. Ballard, for complainant.
Charles F. Soule and S. L. Lowing, for defendants.
To warrant interpleading, the claims “threatening the complainant must be such as to antagonize and negative each other. Where the claim of one party may be legally enforced without implying invalidity of the other, there can be no issuable point for decision.” So where one holds a sum claimed by various others, whose interests are opposed, and all centre upon the fund, he may compel ihem to interplead: School Dist. No. 1 v. Weston, 31 Mich., 85, Moore v. Barnheisel, 45 Mich., 500. But if the several claimants have no common interest in the same fund, interpleading is improper, as whe e the holder of township drain orders, when sued by the town treasurer for the levy against him, attempts to malee other parties, charged for their part of the same improvement, interplead : Wallace v. Sortor, 52 Mich.

Opinion:
Marston, J.:
A bill of interpleader is a bill filed for the protection of a person from whom several persons claim legally or equitably the same thing, debt, or duty; but who has incurred no independent liability to any of them, and does not himself claim an interest in the matter. — Adams' Eq., 202. And it is essential, among other things that the party seeking relief has incurred no independent liability to either claimant.— Id., 204. In this case the bill alleges that *complainant incurred the liability under an express agreement with some of the parties against whom he now claims relief. Such being the ease he is not entitled to the relief he now seeks.
The decree dismissing the hill must he affirmed, with costs.
The other justices concurred.