Case Name: PELLETIER v. STATE NAT. BANK
Court: Louisiana Supreme Court
Jurisdiction: Louisiana
Decision Date: 1904-04-25
Citations: 112 La. 564
Docket Number: No. 15,143
Parties: PELLETIER v. STATE NAT. BANK.
Judges: 
Reporter: Louisiana Reports
Volume: 112
Pages: 563–577

Head Matter:
(36 South. 592.)
No. 15,143.
PELLETIER v. STATE NAT. BANK.
(April 25, 1904.)
APPEAL — BOND — AMOUNT — SUSPENSIVE AP-
PEALS — DISMISSAL.
1. Even if the rule de minimis applies to appeal bonds, it cannot cure a deficiency of $32.91 in a suspensive app'eal bond of $15,032.91.
On Rehearing.
2. Where the order of court granted a suspensive appeal without fixing the amount of bond, and the appellant gave bond which did not exceed by one-half the amount of jud?;ment with accrued interest, the appeal will be dismissed.
3. Where the order of appeal fixes no amount, there can be no devolutive appeal, and there can be no suspensive appeal unless the appellant gives his bond, with good and solvent security, “for a sum exceeding by one-half the amount for which the judgment was given.” Code Prac. arts. 575, 578.
(Syllabus by the Court.)
Appeal from Civil District Court, Parish of Orleans; Walter Byers Sommerville, Judge.
(May 23, 1904.)
Action by Janies B. Pelletier against tbe State National Bank. Judgment for plaintiff, and defendant appeals.
Dismissed.
James McConnell and William Stirling Parkerson (Saunders & Gurley, of counsel), for appellant. E. Howard McCaleb and Hubert M. Ansley, for appellee.

Opinion:
P ROYO STY, J.
Where the appeal is from a money judgment, the Code of Practice requires that for a devolutive appeal the amount of the bond must be fixed by the judge, and that for a suspensive appeal the amount of the bond must exceed by one-half the amount of the judgment appealed from. Code Prac. art. 575.
In the instant case no amount was fixed by the judge. Appellant obtained an order for a suspensive appeal alone, and filed a bond, which it aimed to make sufficient for a suspensive appeal, but which is lacking $32.91 of exceeding by one-half the amount of the judgment appealed from. The judgment, with interest, plus one-half, is $15,-032.91; the bond is for $15,000. Appellee moves to dismiss on the ground that the amount of the bond is insufficient. The motion must be sustained.
Counsel suggests that the case comes under the rule de minimis. In the case of Yale and Bowling v. Cole, 31 La. Ann. 687, this court, through Manning, C. J., said: "Even if the application of that rule was justifiable when the deficiency of the bond was less than one dollar, such application is not a precedent to be followed in this case." The deficiency in that case was $57. True, that was an attachment case; but the case of Woodville v. Klasing, 51 La. Ann. 1057, 25 South. 635, where the deficiency was $48.12, and the case of State ex rel. Jorda v. Judge, 29 La. Ann. 776, where the deficiency was $7.45, were appeal eases. In the latter case the court, in so many words, said; "The maxim de minimis does not apply."
From such knowledge of the case as the court derived from the arguments at the bar the case appeals strongly to the court, but this court is not a legislature. The Code of Practice makes the rule, and this court enforces it.
Appeal dismissed.