ART. 16.] CHANCERY—PLEADING, PRACTICE, PROCESS. 193
such proceedings as the decisions of such question of law may
render unnecessary, may therefor be stayed.
Rule 47.
184. Any person interested, or claiming to be interested, iff
any question cognizable by a court of equity, as to the construc-
tion of any statute, deed, will, or other instrument of writing, or
as to any other matter failing within the original jurisdiction of
such court, or made subject to the jurisdiction thereof by statute,
may state and raise such question before the court in the form of
a special case stated, instead of formal pleading. Every such
special case stated shall be entitled as a cause between some one
or more of the parties interested, or claiming to be interested, as
plaintiff or plaintiffs, and the others of them as defendants; and
such speciai case shall be regularly docketed as a cause pending
in said court, and shall be in all respects, and for all purposes,
treated and regarded as a pending cause, as if regularly instituted
by formal pleading.
Rule 48.
185. Such special case shall concisely state such facts and
documents as may be necessary to enable the court to decide the
question intended to be raised, and it shall be divided into para-
praphs, consecutively numbered; and upon the hearing of such
case, the court and the parties shall be at liberty to refer to the
whole contents of such documents, and the court shall be at
liberty to draw from the facts and documents stated and referred
to in such special case, any inference which the court might have
drawn therefrom if such facts and documents were proved under
formai pleading. And upon such special case stated, the court
may decree as upon bill and answer, and such decree shall be
enforced as other decrees are; but such decree shall in no ease
conclude or affect the rights of any other persons than those who
are parties to such speciai case, and those claiming under or
through such parties; and the right of appeal shall exist as in
cases of decrees upon bill and answer.
Rule 49.
186. Married women may join in any speciai case stated, with
their husbands, and infants having guardians, and lunatics having
13
|
|