Denton v. Wood's Administrator & Heirs
Denton v. Wood's Administrator & Heirs
Opinion of the Court
delivered the opinion of the court.
At the hearing below a decree was rendered, upon
The recovery below having been upon open accounts, and against the appellant as administrator, the bond was too broad: Gorric v. Henderson, 5 Yer., 197; Banks v. McDowell, 1 Cold., 85. In such a case, the surety is liable to the extent of the obligation which the law imposes, within the terms of the bond, upon the principal as a condition of his appeal: Terry v. Stakely, 3 Yer., 506; Sharpe v. Pickens, 4 Cold., 268; Nichols v. McCombs, 2 Yer., 83. In the first of the cases thus cited, decided in 1832, and again in the second case cited, decided in 1867, the courts held that the liability would only be for the costs and damages incident to the appeal, and did not extend to the costs of the court below. In the first case, the appeal was
The liability of a surety, it was said in one of our cases, is limited by the terms of his bond. “ Nothing can be added, otherwise men would be bound not by the contracts they have entered into, but what the court might presume they intended to enter into ”: Nichol v. McCombs, 2 Yer., 83. But in Ogg v. Leivant, 1 Heis., 40, the contrary was ruled. There the bond for the prosecution of a chancery suit was conditioned “to pay all costs and damages that might be decreed by the chancery court.” The complainant successfully prosecuted the suit in the chancery court to a decree, which was reversed upon appeal by the defendant, and the bill dismissed with costs. And this court held that the costs of both the court below and of the ap
If the question were de novo, I should be inclined to think that the statute, by its first section, merely intended to provide that in any of the cases specified the principal might be required to give a bond which would in terms cover all the costs accruing thereafter, -winch might at any time be adjudged against him, but that if a different bond was taken the surety could not be held liable beyond its terms. The third section merely re-enacts what had always been the law, that a failure to insert the proper condition would not affect the validity of the bond to the extent of its actual conditions. And the language of the learned judge who
Even in this view of the statute the language of the bond before us is broad enough to include “ all costs that may be at any time adjudged against the principal,” for the condition is “ to pay the judgment of this court that may be rendered.” If,, therefore, the appellant might be required to give a bond to cover the costs of the court below, he may be held to have actually executed such a bond. But we are clearly of opinion that the “damages and costs” which an appellant to this court is required to give under the statute are only the costs and damages incident to the appeal. The law remains as it always has been, and the liability on the bond is for costs subsequently accruing.
Motion disallowed.
Reference
- Full Case Name
- W. A. Denton v. Gipson Woods' Administrator and heirs
- Status
- Published