Source: https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/110/729/
Timestamp: 2019-04-25 03:50:22+00:00

Document:
rights of the United States, and to enjoy the benefit of the government priority.
Subrogating a surety on a recognizance in a criminal case to the peculiar remedies which the government enjoys is against public policy, and tends to subvert the object and purpose of the recognizance.
§ 3468 Rev.Stat. conferring on sureties on bonds to the United States who are forced to pay the obligation the priority of recovery enjoyed by the United States does not apply to recognizances in criminal proceedings, and does not authorize an action in the name of the United States.
"should appear in person at Trenton, before the United States district court there, and submit to such sentence as the said court should order and direct. "
Court of Union county, and has in his hands the proceeds, amounting to several thousand dollars.
This is an appeal from a decree dismissing a bill in equity on demurrer.
"And your orator further shows that the said sureties, being aware that the said Seth B. Ryder has in his hands a large amount of money belonging to their principal, and subject to the statutory claim of your orator to priority, as aforesaid, have claimed, as a right belonging to them as sureties, that your orator, before selling their lands under said execution, should seek relief in this court to compel the said Seth B. Ryder to apply the said fund to the satisfaction of said execution, as he is bound to do by the statute, giving your orator a priority upon said fund, in order that the said moneys of their principal, in the hands of said Ryder, may be applied to your orator's claim in exoneration of the said sureties, so far as the same will extend."
At the coming on of the argument on this appeal, the Solicitor General of the United States stated in open court that the government has no interest in the suit, the amount of recognizance having been paid by the sureties, and that the suit is prosecuted for the benefit of the sureties only, and this statement was admitted by the counsel for the sureties, who alone argued the cause for the appellants.
Thirdly, if the first two questions are to be answered in the affirmative, whether a case is made by the bill to entitle the complainants to relief.
"The parish stands very much in the nature of sureties, and it is a reasonable practice that the party who has made good to the Crown the default of the defendant should have the same remedy that the Crown itself would have; it is, besides, unanswerable that this is a debt upon record and still subsisting; nor can it be satisfied by the reassessment of the parish."
Rex v. Bennett, Wightwick 1, and cases in note. See also Regina v. Salter, 1 Hurlst. & Nor. 274.
it, even a judgment recovered, and thereby deprived the surety himself of all advantages of such remedies, and left him to his action for money paid -- a result not recognized or admitted by most of the courts of this country, and remedied in England by the Mercantile Law Amendment Act, 19 and 20 Vict. c. 97, by virtue of which a payment of the debt by the surety has virtually the effect of an assignment thereof to him. Sheldon on Subrogation §§ 135-138.
"If a principal do not appear and the recognizance be forfeited and paid by the bail, yet the principal shall remain open and liable to the law whenever he can be taken, for the penalty in the recognizance is no other than as a bond to compel the bail to a due observance thereof, and has no connection with the principal; they could not sue him thereon for money paid to his use, or on his account, for it was paid on their own account, and for their own neglect."
In a subsequent edition, it is true, it is said to have been settled that where a person is bail for another he is entitled to recover all the expenses he has incurred incidental to that situation, and the same statement is made in Petersd. Bail, 517; but the only authority cited for the position is the case of Fisher v. Fallows, 5 Esp. 171, which was a case of bail in a civil proceeding, and consequently was no authority for the proposition as applied to criminal cases.
"As to the nonappearance of the defendant, there can, I apprehend, be little doubt; but a very different question may arise as to the costs, and here the recognizance was estreated only because Orchard failed to pay the costs."
"The rule [to set aside for the plaintiff] was moved on the ground that a contract, in a criminal case, to indemnify the bail against the consequences of a default of the principal's appearance on the trial of the indictment, is contrary to public policy, and therefore that the law will not presume any such contract. It is unnecessary to decide that point on the present occasion, although we are inclined to think the objection well founded, and that such a contract would be contrary to public policy, inasmuch as it would be in effect giving the public the security of one person only, instead of two."
In the subsequent case of Cripps v. Hartnoll, 4 B. & S. 414, it was held by the Court of Exchequer Chamber, upon much consideration, that an express contract to indemnify the bail in a criminal case might be sustained, but that no such contract is implied by law. In that case, the plaintiff had become bail for defendant's daughter upon his promise to hold the plaintiff harmless. The daughter making default, and the plaintiff being obliged to pay his recognizance, sued the defendant on his promise. The latter set up the statute of frauds, and the question was whether the promise was or was not a collateral one; if the person for whose appearance bail was given (the daughter of the defendant) was in law liable to indemnify her bail, then the promise of the father was a collateral one, and void by the statute of fraud for not being in writing; if she was not thus liable, then the father's promise was an original promise of indemnity, and the statute of frauds did not apply. The case was fully argued first in the King's Bench, 2 B. & S. 697, and afterwards in the Exchequer Chamber on error. The King's Bench held, in deference to a former case of Green v.
"Here, the bail was given in a criminal proceeding; and, where the bail is given in such a proceeding, there is no contract on the part of the person bailed to indemnify the person who became bail for him. There is no debt, and with respect to the person who bails there is hardly a duty, and it may very well be that the promise to indemnify the bail in a criminal matter should be considered purely as an indemnity, which it has been decided to be."
process, to seize the person of the principal and compel his appearance. This is the kind of subrogation which exists in criminal cases -- namely subrogation to the means of enforcing the performance of the thing which the recognizance of bail is intended to secure the performance of, and not subrogation to the peculiar remedies which the government may have for collecting the penalty; for this would be to aid the bail to get rid of their obligation, and to relieve them from the motives to exert themselves in securing the appearance of the principal. Subrogation to the latter remedies would clearly be against public policy by subverting, as far as it might prove effectual, the very object and purpose of the recognizance. It would be as though the government should say to the bail, "We will aid you to get the amount of your recognizance from the principal, so that you may be relieved from your obligation to surrender him to justice." If payment of the recognizance operated as a satisfaction or composition of the crime, then the subrogation contended for might be free from this objection; for then the government would be satisfied in regard to the principal matter intended to be secured.
the cases cited therefore can be regarded as affecting the authority of that case.
"Whenever the principal in any bond given to the United States is insolvent, or whenever such principal being deceased, his estate and effects which come to the hands of his executor, administrator, or assignee are insufficient for the payment of his debts, in either of such cases any surety on the bond, or the executor, administrator, or assignee of such surety, pays to the United States the money due upon such bond, such surety, his executor, administrator, or assignee shall have the like priority for the recovery and receipt of the moneys out of the estate and effects of such insolvent or deceased principal as is reserved to the United States, and may bring and maintain suit upon the bond in law or equity, in his own name, for the recovery of all moneys paid thereon."
to pay all his debts, and if, in either of such cases, any surety on the said bond or bonds, or the executors, administrators or assignees of such surety, should pay to the United States the money due upon such bond or bonds, such surety, etc., should have the like advantage, priority, or preference for the recovery of the said moneys out of the estate of such insolvent, or deceased principal, as were reserved or secured to the United States, and should and might bring and maintain a suit or suits upon said bond or bonds in law or equity in his, her, or their own name or names for the recovery of all moneys paid thereon.
cases, without employing more appropriate terms for that purpose than those which the section contains. It will not be inferred that the legislature, in revising and consolidating the laws, intended to change their policy, unless such intention be clearly expressed. McDonald v. Hovey, ante, 110 U. S. 619.
Our opinion is that the right of subrogation does not exist in this case.
But if the sureties were entitled under the act to the same priority which the United States have, they are not entitled to use the name of the United States in prosecuting their claim. The statute expressly declares that they must sue in their own names. The reason is obvious. The government has many advantages in proceeding which are not possessed by individuals, and is not liable to costs, and individuals prosecuting claims against other individuals ought not to have the advantage of the name and prestige of the United States. In the case of United States v. Preston, 4 Wash.C.C. 446, the surety in a duty bond, having paid the judgment recovered on it, brought an action in the name of the United States, for his own use, against the assignees of the principals, and contended that he was entitled to every advantage which the United States are entitled to in such a suit, as to sue in the federal court, to require special bail, to demand a trial at the return of the writ, to exclude equitable defenses, &c. The court, by Mr. Justice Washington, held that the action could not be brought in the name of the United States, but only in the name of the surety himself, and that the only advantage which the law gave to the surety was that of priority over other creditors, and not in the form and modes of proceeding.
As it is conceded that the United States have received full satisfaction of the recognizance on which the present suit is based, and that this suit is not prosecuted for the benefit of the United States, but solely for the benefit of the sureties, we are of opinion that it cannot be sustained; but that the bill ought to be dismissed, as well on the ground that the sureties are not subrogated to the rights of the United States as on the ground that they cannot sue in the name of the United States.
The decree of the court below should be affirmed, and it is affirmed accordingly, but without costs -- each party to pay their own costs on this appeal.

References: § 3468
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