..uoomz: v. BAKER. ;· 3 _
to have a paramount lien upon all the lands and premises described in
the bill; that the same may be ordered to be sold to satisfy the decree
for the payment of money prayed therein, and for such other and fur-
ther relief as shall be deemed just and equitable. * The bill was demurred
to for_want.of equity. ,
, Stark dc Sutherland, for complainant. , j
. E. S. Bragg, for defendants.
_ Drain, J. As is apparent from the foregoing statement of facts, the
object of this suit is to enforce contribution between sureties, and, in aid
thereof, to obtain adecree setting aside certain conveyances of property
made by the defendant Robert A. Baker, which are alleged to have been
fraudulent, so that such property, or its proceeds, may be applied in
payment of Baker’s contributive share of the judgment recovered by the
city against the sureties of Pierron. i
In support of the demurrer, the point is made and strenuously `urged
that, as to the defendant C. Estelle Baker, this is a creditors’ bill, and `
that, as to the property conveyed to her, the complainant is not entitled
to the relief he seeks, because it is not alleged in the bill that he has re-
covered ·a judgment at law against Robert A. Baker upon which execu-
tion has been returned unsatisfied. It is insisted that the complainant
must first exhaust his remedy at law against Baker, before he can conie
into a court of equity and invoke its aid for the purpose of avoiding the
alleged fraudulent conveyances; and that the allegation of Baker’s insolv-
ency does not answer the requirements of the rule on the subject, as ap-
plied to creditors’ bills, orbills for relief against fraudulent transfers of
property. The law is well settled that the right of a creditor to pursue
specinc real property alleged to have been fraudulently conveyed by the
debtor, to obtain satisfaction of his debt, depends upon the fact of his hav-
ing exhausted his legal remedy by the recovery of a judgment, and re-
turn of execution unsatisfied. The proposition has become so far ele-
mentary that authorities in support of it need not be cited. If, there-
fore, this were a creditors’ bill, pure and simple, or merely a bill by a
creditor at large to set aside fraudulent conveyance-s, the point made by
the demurrer would be unanswerable. But the bill embraces other mat-
, ters clearly cognizablo in a court of equity. It is a bill by one surety to
compel contribution by a co-surety, and, as supplementary to the main
purpose of the bill, relief is sought against certain conveyances of real es-
tate, to the end that the property conveyed may be ultimately reached to
satisfy such liability to contribution by the co-surety as may be estab-
lished by final decree. _ As is said in Mason v. Pierron, 63 Wis. 244, 23
N. W. Rep. 119: i
" Actions to enforce contribution between sureties, and to subrogate a surety
who has paid the debt of the principal debtor to the securities and rights
ofthe creditor. are constantly sustained by courts of equity, and have been
from the earliest times."
The enforcement of contribution between sureties is a recognized sub-
ject of equity jurisdiction. "The ground of relief does not," says Story,