Case ID: scl_47/html/0248-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Johnstone, J.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

S. F. Clyburn vs. Silas Ingram.
    
      Bail-Bond.
    
    A bail-bond “toanswerto an account of S. C., as exhibited in sum. pro., and also to a note given by defendant to said C. for the sum of twenty-four dollars and ninety-four cents, due January 1, 1857, given the 18th day of December, 1856,” is not void for uncertainty.
    BEFORE GLOVER, J., AT LANCASTER, SPRING TERM, 1860.
    The report of his Honor, the presiding Judge, is as follows :
    “As the assignee of the Sheriff' the plaintiff sued within the summary process jurisdiction on a bond purporting to be a bail-bond. It was signed and sealed by N. H. Mclnnis and Silas Ingram, dated September 8 and the year blank, with the following condition': ' That if the above bound N. H. Mclnnis do' appear at the Court of Common Pleas to be holden at Lancaster Court-House, for Lancaster District, on the third Monday in October next, to answer to an account of S. F. Clyburn, as exhibited in sum. pro., and also to a note given by defendant to said Clyburn for the sum of twenty-four dollars and ninety-four cents, due 1st of January, 1857, given the 18th day of December, 1856, then the above obligation,’ &c. .
    “The condition of the bond was so imperfect and irregular and unmeaning that I granted a nonsuit.”
    The plaintiff appealed, and now moved this Court to set aside the order for nonsuit, on the grounds:
    • 1. Because, it is respectfully submitted, his Honor erred in holding that the bond upon which suit was brought is not a sufficient bail-bond.
    
      2. Because, it is also submitted, his Honor erred in holding that the action in which said bond was taken is not sufficiently-referred to and identified in said bond.
    
      Moore, for appellant,
    cited Act of 1839, 2 Stat. 29.
    
      Dawkins, contra.
   The opinion of the Court was delivered by

Johnstone, J.

The terms of the bond are certainly not very happy, but they are not so entirely unmeaning as to avoid the instrument, and reduce it to a nullity. I am of opinion that they are sufficient to constitute a bail-bond. As the uncertainty of the instrument seems to have been the only ground of the nonsuit, and no other defect is pointed out, I am of opinion that it should be set aside; and it is so ordered.

Motion granted.

O’Neall, 0. J., concurred.

Motion granted.