Court Opinion

ID: 9833812
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 23:03:06.820924+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:44:07.019213
License: Public Domain

On Appellees’ Motions for Rehearing.
In motions for rehearing, appellees very earnestly insist that the evidence conclusively shows that appellant never made a valid bond, but that she secured her release from custody by inducing the sheriff to accept the $7,500 in lieu of a bond, and in violation of law, and that the court will grant no relief in such illegal transaction.
We think it is wholly immaterial what Tobin’s testimony was on the trial of this case as to the transactions surrounding the execution of said bond. He undertook to forfeit said bond as a valid obligation against appellant. Under such attempted forfeiture he paid out her money in his hands. Its validity as a bond was solemnly asserted in a judicial proceeding, and judgment entered thereon. That judgment, though never máde final, was not void, and the sheriff forever estopped himself and those who accepted payment of the money thereunder to deny its validity. To hold otherwise would be repugnant to public policy and unconscionable. Neither the sheriff nor the state, after they have solemnly declared in the courts of the state that appellant’s bond was a valid obligation, and have been paid- $7,500 of appellant’s money by virtue thereof, will be permitted, in a suit 'to recover said money, to then deny its validity, and assert that same was never a legal obligation, in order to retain the money so obtained.
Upon a further consideration of the question of limitation we have also concluded that, since the appellant had no right to recover said money until said judgment nisi was finally set aside, her cause "of action could not have arisen until that time. Hence any question of diligence on her part or of notice as to what the sheriff had done prior to May 15, 1926, with her money deposited with him as security, are wholly immaterial. Under the undisputed facts, therefore, no limitation could have run against her.
And the county, being charged with full notice of the proceedings under which the sheriff paid over to it said funds, could not obtain nor assert any greater or further right therein than could the sheriff.
Appellees’ motions for rehearing are overruled.
Overruled.