Drummond v. Husson
Drummond v. Husson
Opinion of the Court
Section 335 of the Code, in pursuance of which the undertaking in this case was executed, provides as follows: “If the appeal be from a judgment directing the payment of money, it shall not stay the execution of the judgment unless a written undertaking be executed on the part of the appellant by at least two sureties, to the effect that, if the judgment appealed from or any part thereof be affirmed, the appellant will pay the amount directed to be paid by the judgment, or the part of such amount as to which the judgment shall be affirmed, if it be affirmed only in part, and all damages which shall be awarded against the appellant upon the appeal.” The undertaking in this case is in the precise words of the statute, and the only question is, whether the contingency upon which the liability of the defendants was to attach has occurred. The contract of the defendant is,, that “ if the judgment appealed from or any part thereof be affirmed," the appellant shall pay, &c. A dismissal of the appeal for want of prosecution, is clearly not an affirmance of the j udgment. This court has decided nothing whatever in respect to the validity of the judgment.
The omission of two of the three separate branches of this provision in § 335 of the Code raises, upon all ordinary rules of interpretation, a strong implication that it was not intended under the Code to require security for the payment of the judgment in case of a discontinuance or dismissal of the appeal. Section 335 of the Code could never have been framed and passed without referring to the previous statute on the same subject; and the difference between them could hardly have escaped the attention of the most careless observer. Unless then the legislature considered the two first branches of the condition prescribed by the Revised Statutes as virtually included in the third, which it is difficult to suppose, they must have intended to change the nature and extent of the security required. With the wisdom of this change we have nothing to do. We are simply to ascertain the will of the legislature by the application to their acts of the settled rules of construction; and according to, those rules § 335 of the Code admits in any view of but one interpretation, viz., that it was intended to limit the responsibility of the sureties to the undertaking required upon an appeal to this court, to the single case of actual affirmance of the judgment of the court below.
But the question here is not merely what was the intent of the legislature, but whether the engagement entered into by the defendants has been broken. The terms of the defendants’ undertaking are specific to pay in the event that the judgment appealed from should be affirmed in
Upon the whole, therefore, I deem it clear that no cause of action was shown against the defendants and that the judgment of the supreme court should be affirmed.
Mitchell, J., also delivered an opinion for affirmance.
Judgment affirmed.
Reference
- Full Case Name
- Drummond and another against Husson and another
- Cited By
- 1 case
- Status
- Published