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![handle is hein.slavery/ssactsengr0762 and id is 1 raw text is: The parties best know whether that view of the case is what the Vice-Chancellor
intended. One would have expected that if the Vice-Chancellor intended, by his
order, to assert the affirmative of the proposition tendered by the second exception,
he would have referred it back to the Master to review his report with reference to
the matter of the second exception, instead of referring it back to the Master in the
general terms employed in this order.
What the Vice-Chancellor's opinion was I have no means of judging, except from
the order before me.
That being my view of the case, the parties will take such course as they think
fit.
No order was made on the motion, except so far as to direct that the costs of the
application should be costs in the cause.
[653] ELLICE v. GOODSON. Feb. 23, 24, 28, 1838.
A Defendant who had fully answered a bill, afterwards, upon the bill being amended,
put in a demurrer to the whole of the amended bill. The bill, as amended, did not
materially vary the case originally made against the demurring party, and it
retained a large portion of statement which he had previously answered. Held,
first, that the Court was entitled to look into the record for the purpose of seeing
whether passages existed in the amended bill, which had been previously answered
as part of the original bill.; and, secondly, that as the fact was admitted to be so,
the answer overruled the demurrer.
This was an a ppeal from an order of the Vice-Chancellor, allowing the demurrer
of the Defendant Goodson.
The original bill was filed in October 1836 by the Plaintiff, suing on behalf of
himself and all other specialty creditors of James Law deceased, the testator in the
cause, for the purpose of making the testator's real estates available for the payment
of his debts. The estates lay partly in England and Ireland; but consisted
principally of freehold plantations, situate in the West Indies. Subsequently to the
death of the testator, his executor, acting under a general power of attorney from the
testator's heir at law, had created certain incumbrances on the West India estates in
favour of the Defendants Goodson and Young; and the bill, besides calling for a
general account of the whole of the testator's assets, both real and personal, also
sought to include in the relief to be administered in the suit an inquiry into the
circumstances under which the several securities to Goodson and Young had beei
granted, with a view to impeach their validity, or to have them postponed to the
demands of the Plaintiff and the other specialty creditors of the testator. Very
shortly after the bill was put upon the file, and before the Defendants had put in
answers, some slight verbal alterations were introduced into it by way of amendment.
The Defendants then filed their answers, and the Plaintiff thereupon moved for the
appointment of a consignee or receiver of the West India estates. That motion was
refused. Exceptions were afterwards taken to the an-[654]-swer of Goodson, who, in
the month of March 1837, put in a further answer, and those two answers together
constituted, on his part, a full answer to the bill.
In the month of June 1837 the Plaintiff, under the usual order for that purpose,
amended his bill to a considerable extent, but not so largely as to require a new
engrossment. The amendments consisted partly in the expunging of matter which
had stood in the original bill, and the striking out, as Defendants, of certain parties
who had been originally supposed to have some interest in the suit in consequence of
claims arising out of the Slave Compensation, and partly in the introduction of new
allegations and charges rendered necessary by the change of parties, and some slight
alterations as to particular details in the statement. The suit was also converted
into a suit on behalf of creditors generally. With these exceptions, the amended bill
remained substantially the same as before; and the amendments in no respect varied
the case made against the Defendant Goodson.
In the month of July 1837 Goodson filed a demurrer, which purported to be a
1078
ELLICE V). GOODSONT
3 MY. & CR. 653.](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.slavery/ssactsengr0762&div=1&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)