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498 POST v. MACKALL
claims to which they have thus objected. Some others of these
creditors have obtained absolute judgments against the adminis-
trators of the deceased debtor, which, it is insisted, should be
treated as a complete exoneration of his real estate; others of
them have specific liens on the property from which the proceeds
BOW to be distributed have been raised; and one of them holds a
lien, as a security for its debt, on land lying beyond the jurisdic-
tion of this court; thus altogether presenting a complexity of con-
flicting interests and equities of unusual occurrence.
According to the mode of proceeding under a creditor's bill, each
creditor is allowed to come in without any other formality than the
mere filing of the voucher of his claim; and to be thenceforward
considered as a party to the suit, (k) If the statute of limitations,
as in this instance, be relied on, in general terms, as against any
claims, that period of limitation must be understood as having been
intended to be insisted on, which is properly applicable to the na-
ture of the claim; as where it is founded on a mortgage of the
realty twenty years, if on a judgment or specialty twelve years,
and if on a simple contract three years must be considered as the
bar relied on. If the statute of limitations be relied on generally
by a creditor against the claim of a co-creditor, it can be allowed to
prevail only in so far as it is applicable to the representative holding
the real or personal estate of the deceased who it is proposed to
charge in respect of such assets; as where the claim was merely a
simple contract debt due from the deceased, upon which a judg-
ment had been recovered against, or a promise of payment made by
the executor or administrator, the claim could not be barred as such
against the executor or administrator; because of such judgment
or promise; but as that cannot bind the heir or devisee, the claim
will not be allowed against him if barred as a mere simple contract
debt. The day of filing the voucher of the claim is, as to it, the
date on which the suit for its recovery was instituted; and up to
which the statute of limitations, if relied, is allowed to run. (f)
All objections to claims, thus coming in under the decree, are re-
ceived in the shape, most usually, of exceptions made, as in this
instance, upon which the court looks only at the true nature and
substance of the objection.
But it has been laid down, that if a creditor has obtained an ab-
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(k) Hammond v. Hammond, 2 Bland, 365. —(l) Welsh v. Stewart, 2 Bland, 41;
Serndale v. Hankinson, 2 Cond. Cha. Rep. 198.
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