Court Opinion

ID: 9810265
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 21:44:43.567749+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:39:31.510592
License: Public Domain

Davis, J.,
(dissenting.) I do not concur. I think chapter 121 of the Acts of 1887 should be liberally construed, and. *399it would require no strained construction to bring this castf within its remedial provisions. The bond was filed and sent up with the record of the case more than twenty days before the district from which it was sent up was called, and more than twenty days before the beginning of the term of the Supreme Court. It was here in ample time to allow the ap-pellee to give twenty days’ notice of his motion to dismiss, and if a failure to' file it within the time prescribed is not such an irregularity as to bring it within the very letter of the statute, which, I think, is by no means certain. I think the clear purpose and spirit of the act was to give the appellant an opportunity to be heard before his appeal should be dismissed for want of a sufficient bond, where there was any bond filed by him within time to enable the appellee to give twenty days’ notice.
If the bond is a good and sufficient one, the appellee is fully protected against any possibility of injury if the merits of the case are with him, and it seems to me to have been the purpose of the legislature, by this statute, to remedy the evil of having cases on appeal dimissed without a hearing upon the merits, and without notice of the motion to dismiss, when a bond is filed within time to allow the twenty days’ notice. It may be, that if notice had been given, the appellant would have had a full and satisfactory answer to the motion.
At all events, I think the legislative intent is so apparent that one might adopt such a construction without incurring the criticism of judicially legislating, or of exercising unwarranted discretion.
Great wrong may result to the appellant, and none can result to the appellee by a failure to have the appeal heard on its merits, and as the bond was filed in ample time to allow the appellee to give the notice required by the act of 1887, and no such notice was given, I think the notice to dismiss ought not to be allowed.
Dismissed.