LINGAN v. HENDEESON.—1 BLAND. 241

plaintiff cannot be relieved; because it is thus shown, that he has
no cause of action, nor any just grounds for asking relief in the
case he specifies. So on the other hand, if the defendant shews,
that some facts have been stated which in truth compose no part
of the case, so as to give it an equitable character which does not
belong to it, the plaintiff can have no relief, because his case is
not substantially that upon which he has asked it.

Hence, as it is the cause of action, as substantially stated in the
bill, upon which alone the Court can grant relief; and as, if, upon
its face, it appears to be one of which the Court cannot take cogni-
zance; and as, if the facts, thus stated, be not substantially the
whole truth, without any material suppression or addition, the
* plaintiff cannot be relieved; so likewise, if no such cause
of action ever did exist; if it did once exist, but is shewn 256
to have been, since, and before the institution of the suit, wholly
barred, satisfied, or extinguished in any way whatever, the plain-
tiff cannot have any relief; because it appears, that when he in-
stituted his suit he had no cause of action, no just ground of com-
plaint whatever as alleged. For it is a fundamental principle in
the administration of justice in whatever form, or by whatever
tribunal it may be administered, that where there is no cause of
complaint there can be foundation for granting relief. Rigeway's
Case, 3 Co. 52; Brace v. Taylor, 2 Atk. 253; Piggott v. Williams, 6
Mad. 95.

But however self-evident this principle may appear to be, when
contemplated in relation to a suit brought by one plaintifff against
no more than one defendant for relief, upon a simple, entire, and
indivisible cause of suit; \et, it does not appear to have been so
readily and distinctly perceived where the cause of action has
been compounded of various items; or where the satisfaction for
the cause of suit is asked for in damages, or to an indefinite
amount to be ascertained by an estimate of the nature and extent
of the injury; and especially where that complexity has been in-
creased by the relief being sought from a plurality of defendants.
The cause of suit, at law as in equity, may be made up of a va-
riety of parts joined together as one whole, or it may be an injury
which can only be satisfied by some pecuniary equivalent; or the
cause of suit may be the right to a subject which is in itself divi-
sible; or it may be that the several defendants, although interested
and connected as privies and parties, are yet liable only disjunc-
tively, or in separate proportions.

Thus where the next of kin of the deceased filed their bill to
recover their respective distributive shares of the surplus of cer-
tain portions of his personal estate, alleging, that he had died
intestate as to those portions of it, and on the hearing it being
shewn, that he had died intestate only of his silver-plate, the
plaintiffs had relief as to that, but as to the rest the bill was dip-
16 1B.