Case ID: ga_26/html/0410-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "McDonald J.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

John B. Gordon, et al., plaintiffs in error, vs. John W. Robertson, defendant in error.
    An appeal bond signed by one of several defendants, against whom the verdict appealed from was rendered, the other defendants and no one else signing as his security, is not even an attempt to comply with the statute, and is neither good as an appeal bond, nor can it be amended.
    Debt, from Troup Superior Court. Decision by Judge Bull, at May Term, 1858.
    John W. Robertson brought suit, in the Inferior Court of Troup county, against John B. Gordon, as principal, and Thomas J. Bacon and Alexander A. Roberts, as sureties, upon a note given for the hire of negroes.
    There was a verdict for plaintiff, and an appeal. Upon the case being called for trial on the appeal, in the Superior Court, the plaintiff moved to dismiss the appeal, upon the ground that there was no security on orto the appeal bond. The bond was signed by John B. Gordon, by attorney, B. H. Bigham, Thomas J. Bacon and Alexander A. Roberts, the parties defendant, and by them only. Pending the motion to dismiss, counsel for Gordon moved to give the security required by law, at the same time stating that it was the intention, at the time he executed the bond, as attorney for Gordon, to take a legal and complete appeal; that he signed the bond in blank, and left it to be filled up by the Clerk, and the procuring the securities to be attended'to by Mr. Roberts, he himself being suddenly called away from Court, by the sickness of a relation.
    The presiding Judge here adds: “no effort having been '^made to provide security, and it not appearing that any one was willing, or had intended, to sign as security.”
    Counsel for defendants further insisted, that even if it was not a good appeal for all the defendants, yet, as the record stood, it was good as an appeal for John B. Gordon, the principal' in the action, and as to him should not be dismissed.
    
      The presiding Judge refused to allow the appeal bond to be amended, by giving the security proposed, and dismissed the appeal, and counsel for defendants excepted.
    B. H. Bigham, for plaintiffs in error.
    Milton H. Rachels, contra.
    
   By the Court.

McDonald J.

delivering the opinion.

The only persons who signed the appeal bond as sureties, are parties defendant in the cause, against whom the plaintiff had recovered a verdict. There was no attempt or offer to give any security, for the bond of these parties gave no additional guaranty to the plaintiff, or strength to the demand on which he had recovered the verdict. It was, therefore, neither a compliance, nor an attempt to comply, with the requisitions of the statute, to give the plaintiff security for the eventual condemnation money.

It follows that the appeal was not good, as to the defendant, Gordon. There is no precedent for the motion made in this case. There is nothing like it in any of the adjudicated cases, and they have gone quite far enough.

Judgment affirmed.