Court Opinion

ID: 9306899
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2022-12-02 17:17:46.829859+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:13:57.196912
License: Public Domain

DALLAS, Circuit Judge
(after stating the facts). This case has been argued upon demurrers filed by several of the defendants, and which have been treated by counsel, with apparent correctness, as demurrers to discovery, and not to relief; hut “a demurrer to dis eovery, indeed, is not in its nature a demurrer at all, but a mere statement in writing that the defendant refuses to answer certain allegations in the bill, for reasons which appear upon the face of the hill, and which the demurrer points out.” 1 Langd. Eq. PL § 97. The several refusals to answer which have been here interposed, though not all expressed in the same terms, are all based upon substantially the same ground, viz. that the discovery sought is immaterial to the purposes of the suit. This, however, is at least not so apparent on the face of the hill as to warrant the court in *628assuming, at tliis stage and on these demurrers, that the facts inquired about are irrelevant. The theory of the bill appeal’s to be that the defendants united and combined in an unlawful scheme to his injury; and he insists that it is essential to his relief that the acts of each of them in carrying that scheme into effect should be disclosed, and that full answers from all of them are requisite to that end. If this contention should be supported by the complainant, and if the bill should be ultimately sustained by the court, the right of the complainant to the discovery he seeks will have been established; but the order now made must be understood to be without prejudice to the right of the defendants, or any of them, to again raise, otherwise than by demurring to discovery alone, the questions which have now been discussed at bar. At present T need only say that I have no doubt that if the complainant is entitled to relief against all those whom he has joined as defendants, his right to discovery from all of them is unquestionable. The demurrers, including those joined with answers as well as those which have been separately filed, are overruled, and the • demurrants are assigned to answer or plead, or to demur (but not to discovery merely), on or before the next rule day; and all questions of costs are reserved.