LINGAN v. HENBERSON.

plaintiff cannot be relieved; so likewise, if no such cause of action
ever did exist; if it did once exist, but is shewn to have been,
since, and before the institution of the suit, wholly barred, satis-
fied, or extinguished in any way whatever, the plaintiff cannot
have any relief; because it appears, that when he instituted his
suit he had no cause of action, no just ground of complaint what-
ever as alleged. For it is a fundamental principle in the adminis-
tration of justice in whatever form, or by whatever tribunal it may
be administered, that where there is no cause of complaint there
can be no foundation for granting relief.(t)

But however self-evident this principle may appear to be, when
contemplated in relation to a suit brought by one plaintiff against
no more than one defendant for relief, upon a simple, entire, and
indivisible cause of suit; yet, 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 increased
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 variety 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 divisible ;
or it may be that the several defendants, although interested and
connected as privies and parties, are yet liable only disjunctively,
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 certain
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 dismissed. The
defence made and sustained going to a part only of the subject
claimed, it appeared, that the plaintiffs had a valid cause of suit,
and were therefore relieved. (U) So, in general, if a man brings an
action for two tilings, for the recovery of both of which the action

will lie, But on the trial falls to sustain his claim to one of them ;

(f) Rigeway's Case, 3 Co. 52; Brace v. Taylor,2 Atk. 253; Piggott v. Williams,
6 Mad. 95.—(u) Sprigg v. Weems, 2 H. & McH. 266.