Cases argued and decided in the Supreme Court of the State of Texas, during the latter part of the Austin term, 1884, and the Tyler term, 1884. Volume 62. Page: 166

                                
166                GLASScocK v. HAMILTON.     [Austin Term,
Opinion of the court.
the compromise thus made becomes absolved from that liability by
the payment of an amount comparatively insignificant compared
with his aliquot part of the whole indebtedness, and far less than
the amount to which Glasscock's heirs remain liable to pay to the
United States under any rule of decision to which they may have
to submit in case the United States shall see proper to enforce the
remedy which has been reserved against them in the judgment.
The equitable right to contribution, which is administered at law
as well as in equity, proceeds upon acknowledged principles of
equality and justice, and those principles require that where one
jointly bound by a common obligation to pay the debt of another
shall pay more than his ratable share of it, that the other shall reimburse
him therefor. But if such party shall obtain his own discharge
by the payment of less than his ratable proportion of the
whole debt, and leave his fellow surety liable to pay to the creditor
his own original full share of the debt, there is no rule that can be
deduced from these maxims of equality and justice on which to
raise an assumpsit that such co-surety should contribute to that one
who has thus compromised, paid and obtained his discharge. Whilst
each surety is, as to the creditor, liable for the whole debt as between
himself and his co-sureties, he is liable to contribution to
those paying the debt to no more than his equal portion ratably
distributed between those who are solvent and able to sustain with
him the common burden.
If Hamilton and his co-defendant sureties in the suit on the bond
desired to preserve their equitable demand on Glasscock's heirs for
contribution upon payment of the small sums comparatively with
which they bought their discharge, it behooved them to have caused
to be embraced in the beneficial provisions of the compromise the
discharge alike of Glasscock's heirs along with themselves on the
payment of $10,000. Failing to make this equitable provision for
their benefit, in case such terms could have been made, it must be
replied in the words of a learned court, "if a party. base his right
to recover upon principles of natural equity, the defendant may appeal
to the same principles in his defense." If they were unable to
effect such terms for the protection of Glasscock's heirs, they cannot
complain if, when they are left liable to pay as to the larger
part of the debt, the law refuses to impose on them the additional
burden of contributing to the payment of the amounts which they
paid to obtain their release.
The right to contribution results from the maxim that equality is
equity, and it has also been said that it has been considered as de