Case ID: vt_28/html/0763-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Bennett, J.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

The Town of Craftsbury v. Reuben W. Hill and John Lock.
    
      Arbitration.
    
    Tile revocation of a submission is a breach of an agreement or condition in an arbitration bond to abide by and perform the award.
    Debt on an arbitration bond, executed by the defendants to the plaintiffs, the condition of which recited the submission of a suit pending in favor of the defendant Hill, against the plaintiffs, to certain referees named, and concluded as follows:
    
      “ Now, if the said Reuben W.’ Hill, his executors and administrators, on his and their part, shall and do, in and by all things, well and truly observe, perform and keep the award and determination which the said arbitrators shall make and publish of or in the premises, in writing, under their hands, on or before * * * * then this obligation is to be void, otherwise to be and remain in full force.”
    The declaration, after setting forth the execution and condition of the bond, alleged a breach or forfeiture of it as follows:
    
      “ Yet the said Hill, by his instrument in writing, sealed with his seal on the 12th day of October, A. D 1855, revoked the power of said arbitrators to make an award. '* * ■ * * “ Now, tbe plaintiffs say that the said Hill hath not, in and by all things, well and truly observed, performed and kept the award and determination which the said arbitrators should make and publish of or in the premises, in writing, under their hands, on or before * ' * * * as by the condition of his writing obligatory aforesaid he was bound to do, but by his revocation of his said agreement to submit the said matters in dispute to arbitration as afore-' said, hath occasioned the loss to the plaintiff of large sums of money expened in procuring counsel, securing the attendance of Witnesses, and in preparing for the trial before the arbitrators, as aforesaid, to wit, the sum of one hundred dollars.”
    To this declaration the defendants demurred. The county court}December Term, 1855, — Poland, J., presiding,-^-adjudged the declaration sufficient, to which the defendants excepted.
    ---for the defendants.
    ----for the plaintiffs.
   The opinion of the court was delivered, at the circuit session in September, by

Bennett, J.

This is an action of debt upon a bond of submission to arbitration, and the condition is, “ that said Hill, his executors, &c., shall and do, in and by all things, well and truly observe, perform and keep the award and the determination which, the arbitrators shall make.” The breach of the condition set up in the declaration is a revocation of the submission, and the question raised on the demurrer, seems to- be, whether that is a breach of the submission. We think this question is well settled by authority. See Vynior’s case, 8 Coke 162, ,3d resolution, and Warberton v. Storer, 4 B. & C. 103. By the revocation, Hill had deprived the arbitrators of the power to malee an award, and consequently also himself of the power to observe,\ perform and keep it, and this, in legal effect, is a forfeiture of the bond, and a breach of the condtion. The condition of this bond seems to have been drawn according to modern precedents.

Judgment of the county court affirmed.