Case Name: THE METROPOLITAN CONCERT COMPANY (Limited), Respondent, v. HOWARD A. SPERRY and Another, Appellants
Court: New York Supreme Court
Jurisdiction: New York
Decision Date: 1890-12
Citations: 65 N.Y. Sup. Ct. 470
Docket Number: 
Parties: THE METROPOLITAN CONCERT COMPANY (Limited), Respondent, v. HOWARD A. SPERRY and Another, Appellants.
Judges: Van Brunt, P. J., concurred.
Reporter: Supreme Court Reports (Hun)
Volume: 65
Pages: 470–474

Head Matter:
THE METROPOLITAN CONCERT COMPANY (Limited), Respondent, v. HOWARD A. SPERRY and Another, Appellants.
Costs — against an assignee of the cause of action — sureties upon an undertaking, who prosecute the action brought by their principal, a/re not liable for the costs — remedy of the defendant.
'Section 3247 of the Code of Civil Procedure, in relation to the payment of costs, only applies to a case where the cause of action has heen transferred to the party sought to be charged with costs, or he has become beneficially interested therein.
That section does not cover a case in which a surety upon an undertaking, given upon obtaining an order of arrest, applies to the court to set aside a default made by the plaintiff in that action, and to he permitted to prosecute, and does prosecute, the same. (Brady, J., dissenting.)
Semble, that the remedy of the defendant, in the action in which the order of arrest was obtained, must rest upon the undertaking given by the sureties.
Appeal by the defendants from an order made at Special Term, and entered in the office of the clerk of the county of New York on the 2d day of July, 1890, which denied the defendants’ motion for leave to issue an execution against the property of Theodore Heilman and Emil Carlebach, sureties for the plaintiff in the above: entitled action.
The order was made upon a motion to compel Theodore Heilman and Emil Carlebach to pay $3M.59 costs, for which a judgment had been entered in favor of the defendants, in an action brought against them by the Metropolitan Concert Company (Limited), in which an order of arrest had been made, the undertaking given upon issuing which had been signed by said Theodore Heilman and Emil Carlebach as sureties.
Howard A. Sperry, for the appellants.
Eugene Seligman, for the respondent.

Opinion:
Daniels, J.:
The action was commenced by the plaintiff to recover the value of certain property, and an order of arrest was made under which the defendants, or one of them certainly, was held to bail. This order was afterwards vacated and the complaint in the action was finally dismissed for the want of prosecution. These two sureties after that applied to the court to set aside the default and to permit them to prosecute the action. That order was made and they proceeded from that time with the prosecution of the suit. It finally reached the Court of Appeals, where it was held that the plaintiff was not entitled to recover, and a judgment for the costs was recovered in the action.
The plaintiff was then insolvent, and this motion was made to require these two sureties to pay the costs which had been recovered under the authority of section 3247 of the Code of Civil Procedure. But the motion was denied for the reason that the cause of action had not been transferred to them and they did not become beneficially interested therein. And that appears, by what had taken place, to have been their situation. No transfer of the cause of action or any interest in it was made to them. They did not become beneficially interested in it in any form, nor did it, by transfer or otherwise, become their property. And it is only when the action may be carried on by a party sustaining one of these relations to it that this section of the Code has subjected him or them to liability for the costs. By no fair construction of the language of any part of the section can it be held to include the case of these sureties. What they did in the way of prosecuting the action was to protect themselves against liability on their undertaking, and not to secure any advantage or interest whatever in the recovery.
The remedy of the defendants, if they are entitled to recover these costs from the sureties in the undertaking, must, therefore, be by an action upon that instrument. It was given in compliance with section 559 of the Code of Civil Procedure, and it bound these sureties, if the defendants should recover judgment, to the effect that the plaintiff would pay all costs which might be awarded to the defendants. And if the plaintiff shall fail to pay, as it is probable it may, because of its insolvency, then, according to this section, the defendants may have an ample remedy against the sureties upon the undertaking. That is the provision that has been made in their favor, and it is under that, if they can secure indemnity at all, that they must proceed for the recovery of these costs.
The order, therefore, was right and it should be affirmed, with ten dollars costs and the disbursements.
Van Brunt, P. J., concurred.