Case ID: tenn_13/html/0183-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "GREEN, J.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

White and Chilcutt vs. The State.
    To authorize a judgment upon a scire facias in a recognizance of bail in a State case, against the securities, it must aver that the principal was called and made default, 
    
    The scire facias in this case states, that the plaintiffs in error entered into a recognizance at the June term, 1828, for the appearance at the December term following, of Louis Stanislaus de St. Leger, to answer the State upon an indictment for an assault and battery; and that at the said December term the plaintiffs in error were called, and failed to come and bring with them the body of the said St. Leger, whereby they forfeited their recognizance, and that a judgment nisi was thereupon entered against them.
    Barrow, for plaintiffs in error.
    
      A. Hays, Attorney General, for the State.
    
      
       Grigsby vs. The State, 3 Verger's Rep. 280.
    
   GREEN, J.

delivered the opinion of the court.

The scire facias does not allege that St. Leger, the principal,'was called and made default at the December term, but simply that the securities were called to come and bring his body, which they failed to do. This is not sufficient to authorize a judgment against them. They could > only be liable if their principal failed to make his appearance. From aught that appears, he might have been in attendance at the time the. forfeiture was taken against his securities. In the case of Grigsby vs. the State, at the last term of this court, it was adjudged that to render appearance bail liable, the scire facias must aver that the principal had made default. Let the judgment be reversed.

Judgment reversed.