In Bourdieu v. Pacific Oil Co., 299 U.S. 65, 57 S.Ct. 51, 81 L.Ed. 42 (1936), where the bill entirely failed to state any cause of action and the rights of absent parties were in no way threatened, the court held that it would be a waste of time to consider the question of indispensable parties, and dismissed the bill on the merits; but the court specifically stated that such inquiry would have been entirely proper under a good bill. This decision merely applied the maxim that the law does not require any one to do vain or useless things.