mvms v. smrn. 3
junction is based is Hled in this court by the plaintiffs in the last-
mentioned law action, against the defendant therein, to restrain the
latter from working and mining on the Eureka claim during the pend-
ency of the law action. Its object is to preserve the property until
the title to the claim can be tried at law. No question affecting the
ultimate rights of the parties can be determined in it. The relief '
sought by the bill was once allowed and afterwards denied by the dis-
tricttcourt of Gunnison county, in the suit of May 11, 1883, which is
still pending in that court. In this suit, therefore, the plaintiffs'
right to relief must depend upon the right to prosecute the principal
cause at law in this court, which was removed from the district court
of Gunnison county, as before stated. Between May 11, 1883, when -
the first suit at law was brought, and November 1, 1883, when the
second suit at law was brought, changes occurred in the ownership
of the property: three of the plaintiffs in the first suit, Hess, Pierce,
and Steward, conveyed their interests in the Eureka claim to the re-
maining plaintiff, Charles H. Smith, and nine of the defendants in
the same suit retired from the Nest Egg claim, and Edwin H. Hiller
and Nelson Hallock acquired some interest in it. Notwithstanding
these changes in the ownership of the property, the second suit is na
cross-action to the first, which adds nothing to the controversy.
As before stated, defendant in the first suit set up title to the ground
in dispute under the Nest Egg location, and asked for affirmative re-
lief. The second suit, brought by the same defendants and those claim-
ing under them, presented only a different arrangement of the parties,
without change in the subject-matter of the action. The object of
each suit was the same, and a judgment in either would bar all
further proceedings in the other. When two suits are brought for
the same thing, the court may require the parties to elect in which
they will proceed, or may consolidate them. By section 20 of the Code,
suits upon causes of action which might have been joined may be con-
solidated, and several actions for the same cause must be subject to
the same rule. And where there are several actions for the same cause
pending in the same court at the same time, any step taken in one of
them should bind the parties in all of them. The court is certainly
not bound to proceed in the same manner and with the like results in
every such cause. To illustrate this proposition, a trial having been
had in the district court in the suit of May 11, 1883, the court was
not bound to proceed to try the same issue in the suit of November 10,
1883. Inasmuch as a judgment in one would bar the other, the
causes must be taken to be so identified that whatever was done in
one of them will conclude the parties on the same point in the other.
In other words, although the causes were not consolidated, and there
was no election of record to prosecute one rather than the other, pro-
ceeding in one was attended with the same results asif such order `
had been made. The circumstance that the suit of November 10,
1883, is in support of an adverse claim does not affect the question;