Court Opinion

ID: 9818089
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 05:19:45.264311+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T10:54:19.606338
License: Public Domain

On REHEARING.
In the case of Southwestern Surety & Insurance Co. v. Hall, 40 Okla. 447, 139 Pac. 305, wherein it is said that “we look to-the substance rather than the form,” the record discloses two-judgments entered upon different days, one against Appleton and Brazil, and the other against the surety company on their official bonds, and the court held that these judgments, although several in form, were in fact a joint judgment, arid, the surety company alone having appealed, dismissed the appeal for want of necessary parties. This case is an authority supporting the original opinion in the instant case. If the contention of plaintiff in error is correct, the motion to dismiss in that case should have been overruled, since the principals were not necessary parties to the appeal and a failure to join them was not ground for dismissal, but the court “looked to the substance rather than the form,” and found that the judgments, although several in form and rendered on different days, were in fact joint, and, the principals being necessary parties to the appeal, and not having been made parties thereto, sustained the motion to dismiss. It was *812not necessary to look beyond the form of the judgment in the instant case. This alone showed that the judgment was joint, and that all of the parties, to the joint judgment had not been made parties to the appeal. In passing upon a similar motion in Jameson v. Goodwin, 43 Okla. 154, 141 Pac. 767, the court said that the rule by which to determine the motion is, were the parties omitted from the appeal necessary parties to the proceedings in the trial court, and if found to be necessary parties in the trial court, they were necessary parties on appeal, and, if omitted, the motion to dismiss on that ground should be sustained. This rule also supports the original opinion filed herein.
To hold, as contended by the plaintiff in error, that the principal is not a necessary party to an appeal from a judgment rendered in an action against the principal and surety on a bond, it would be necessary to overrule a number of the former decisions of this court. See Southwestern Surety & Ins. Co. v. Hall, supra, and cases there cited, and those cited in the original opinion herein. With due respect to the counsel urging the proposition, we are constrained to decline to so hold. One ot the questions of practice that might be regarded as settled in this jurisdiction is that the principal is a necessary party to such appeal.
The petition for rehearing is denied, and the original opinion filed herein is adhered to in all respects.
By the Court: It is so ordered.