Langley v. Devlin
Langley v. Devlin
Opinion of the Court
This action was brought by nonresident plaintiffs seeking, among other things, to enjoin the sale of certain stocks. They were compelled to furnish a bond for costs, upon demand of the defendants, as required by Rem. 1915 Code, § 495. The trial court entered a decree vacating the injunction. No judgment was entered against the surety upon the costs bond. Plaintiffs appealed. The notice of appeal was served upon the defendants, but not upon the surety in the plaintiffs’ costs bond. Defendants, respondents here, seeking to invoke the rule announced in Shippen v. Shippen, 91 Wash. 610, 158 Pac. 247, have moved that the appeal be dismissed. That decision, however, is not controlling upon the record here. It is obvious that the interest of the appellants and that of the surety on their costs bond, so far as the latter ever had any interest as a contractual party to the action, are precisely the same. The requirement of service of notice
If, on the other hand, the judgment be reversed, the surety will be conclusively relieved of all liability upon the costs bond. Herein lies the plain distinction between this case and the case of Shippen v. Shippen, supra. There the party in whose favor the costs bond ran, having suffered defeat in the trial court, could only entitle herself to a judgment for costs, in the trial court, either as against the plaintiff or the surety on plaintiffs’ costs bond, by a reversal of the judgment. The surety was, therefore, directly interested in having the judgment sustained on the appeal. On the record here, the surety has no such interest in the appeal, and not being a party to the judgment, even conceding that it was a party to the ac
A service of notice of appeal upon the surety here would have been an idle formality. It could not have joined in the appeal because it was not a party to the judgment; hence the evil of successive appeals, which the statute, Rem. 1915 Code, § 1720, was enacted to avoid, was not imminent. Respondents would have gained no right by such a service, and have lost no right by its absence.
Some suggestion was made in argument that certain other parties in interest were not served with notice of the appeal. The motion before us, however, is addressed solely to the failure to serve the surety upon the costs bond.
The motion is denied.
Morris, C. J., Mount, Holcomb, Main, Parker, Chadwick, and Fullerton, JJ., concur.
Reference
- Full Case Name
- W. J. Langley v. A. J. Devlin
- Status
- Published
- Syllabus
- Appeal — Notice—Parties to Be Served — -Sureties on Plaintiff's Cost Bond. In an action brought by a nonresident plaintiff furnishing a bond for costs, in which judgment went for defendant but was not entered against the sureties on the cost bond, the sureties are not parties “similarly affected-by the judgment or order appealed from” within Rem. 1915 Code, § 1720, and hence need not be served with notice of plaintiff’s appeal.