Case Name: Nichol & M'Allister vs. M'Combs
Court: Tennessee Supreme Court
Jurisdiction: Tennessee
Decision Date: 1822-03
Citations: 2 Yer. 83
Docket Number: 
Parties: Nichol & M’Allister vs. M’Combs.
Judges: 
Reporter: Tennessee Reports
Volume: 10
Pages: 83–83

Head Matter:
Nichol & M’Allister vs. M’Combs.
Where the condition of an appeal bond was to prosecute the appeal with effect, or pay all costs and damages, it was held that judgment could not be rendered against the security in appeal for the principal debt.
This was an appeal in the nature of a writ of error, from the judgment of the circuit court, rendered against the plaintiffs in error as securities in an appeal bond. The judgment was rendered against them for the whole amount of the debt, damages and costs. Thecondition of the appeal bond, was “that the defendant should well and truly prosecute his said appeal with effect, or otherwise pay all damages and costs.”

Opinion:
Opinion of the court delivered by
Judge Haywood.—
In this case judgment was rendered upon an appeal bond on motion against the sureties in the appeal.
The condition of an appeal bond from the county to the circuit court, ought to be for prosecuting the same with effect, and for performing the judgment, sentence or decree, &c., not for the payment of damages and costs only. In the condition of a bond, something insensible maybe rejected, or be understood to mean what it really intended, but nothing can be added; and upon the bond such as it is, must judgment be given; otherwise men would be bound, not by the contracts they have entered into, but by what the court might presume they intended to enter into. Their obligations would be framed by the court, and not by themselves. If an appeal bond embrace only part of what the act of 1794 ch. 1, sec. 63, orders, it is so far good, but not for more than it embraces. In this case the bond is good for the costs and damages, ana for that judgmentmay be entered against the security; but it is not good for the principal, which it does not embrace. The like case hath been decided in North Carolina, and it is placed upon the principle established by 2 L. Raymond 1459. Judgment reversed.