The principle of res judicata applies when a previous decision between co-defendants determines a subsequent claim, and the court may split causes of action to determine jurisdiction.

Arnold White, C.J.

1. In this case the suit was dismissed by Mr. Justice Bakewell on the ground that the plaintiffs claim was barred as res judicata by reason, of the decision in a suit which was brought in 1902 in the City Civil Court. The plaintiff appeals. The question arises in this way. In 1902 a man who had obtained a decree against the present plaintiff and the present plaintiffs father in the Small Cause Court brought a suit in which the present plaintiffs father was the 1st defendant, and the present plaintiffs step-mother was the third defendant. In that suit he claimed two reliefs. The main relief claimed was a declaration that a certain deed of sale which had been executed by the present plaintiffs father and which purported to be in favour of the present plaintiff and the present defendant was in fraud of creditors. He claimed by way of alternative relief that, if the deed of sale was held to be good, it should be declared that a quarter share of a certain house that is to say a half of the half share which was in dispute in that case and with which only the present suit is concerned, was the property of the present plaintiff and was available for the satisfaction of the decree which the plaintiff in the City Civil Court suit had obtained. The present defendant, who was the 3rd defendant in that suit, pleaded that she was the absolute owner of the half share mentioned in the plaint in that suit. At that time the present plaintiff was a minor and he was then represented by a guardian who was an officer of the Court. The guardian in his written statement put the plaintiff to proof of the allegations mentioned in the plaint. At the trial of the suit, the Judge of the City Civil Court came to the conclusion that the deed of sale impeached by the judgment-creditor was good and the suit was dismissed. In dealing with the alternative claim put forward by the Judgment creditor the learned Judge held that under the deed of sale in question the plaintiff took no interest and that the interest in the property passed to the present defendant, the third defendant in that suit. The claim for alternative relief put forward by the plaintiff in that suit was the subject of a specific issue, and that issue only arose for determination in the event of the Judge of the City Civil Court holding that the deed of sale was good. The issue was in these terms whether the said half share is the absolute property of the third defendant and the 2nd defendant has no share in it." What the learned judge held. was. " Third defendant explains that as she was childless and as she took the sale deed when 1st defendant was seriously ill, 2nd defendants name was also included in the document at her desire. This is quite probable. As the whole consideration for the sale deed passed from her, she is the absolute owner of the property, and 2nd defendant is not entitled to anything except what she may choose to give hereafter out of her free-will and affection". There was a decree passed in accordance with that judgment. The decree starts with a recital that the plaintiff sues for a declaration that a half or alternatively (the word alternatively does not appear in the decree) one-fourth share in the under mentioned house etc., is liable to be attached". But in the operative part of the decree all that is said i$ that the suit is dismissed, and in view of the decision of the City Civil Court Judge that may well be the proper form of the decree, because he held first that the deed of sale was good and secondly that all the interest under the deed of sale did not in whole or in part become vested in the Judgment-debtor but in a third party. In that state of things it may well be that the decree, was correct in omitting the adjudication as between the 2nd and 3rd defendants.

2. Then in 1912 the plaintiff brought the present suit, and in this suit he asks for a declaration that he is entitled to the whole of the house in question. Half of the house