Board of County Commissioners of Fillmore County v. Greenleaf
| Decision Date | 15 June 1900 |
| Docket Number | 12,170 - (221) |
| Citation | 83 N.W. 157,80 Minn. 242 |
| Parties | BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS OF FILLMORE COUNTY v. JULIA F. GREENLEAF and Others |
| Court | Minnesota Supreme Court |
Action in the district court for Fillmore county against Julia F Greenleaf and Maurice R. Todd, as principals, and M. T Grattan and others, as sureties on a bond. The issues arising on the answer of defendant sureties were tried before Kingsley, J., and a jury, which was directed to render a verdict in favor of defendants. From an order denying a motion for a new trial, plaintiff appealed. Affirmed.
Bond -- Material Alteration -- Release of Sureties.
A bond of a depositary of county funds, after its execution by the sureties, was by the principal, with the consent of the obligee, altered, without the consent of the sureties, whereby the interest which the principal was to pay on the monthly balances of the deposits was reduced from three per cent. per annum to two per cent. Held, that the alteration was material, and that the sureties were discharged thereby.
John W. Hopp, for appellant.
Burdett Thayer and Duxbury & Duxbury, for respondents.
The defendants Julia F. Greenleaf and Maurice R. Todd were partners in the banking business at Preston, this state, under the name of the Fillmore County Bank, and were selected and designated as a depositary of the public funds of Fillmore county pursuant to the statute. They qualified as such depositary by executing as principals a bond to the county in the penal sum of $10,000, with the respondents herein as sureties. Default was made in the condition of the bond, in that the principals failed to pay over to the county treasurer, on due demand, the sum of $2,824.80 of the public funds deposited with them pursuant to such designation and bond. This action was brought upon the bond to recover the amount of such deficiency. The sureties answered, alleging that after the execution of the bond by them it was, without their knowledge or consent, materially altered.
On the trial it was conclusively established that when the sureties executed and delivered the bond its condition was ( it according to its legal effect) that the principals would pay interest on all public money deposited with them at the rate of three per cent. per annum upon the monthly balances of such deposits; and, further, that they would credit such interest, and hold the public funds, with accrued interest, subject to draft and payment at all times. But after the delivery of the bond by the sureties, and without their knowledge or consent, Todd, one of the principals, with the consent of the county commissioners, changed the condition of the bond so as to make the rate of interest two per cent. per annum instead of three. The trial court dismissed the action, and the plaintiff appealed from an order denying its motion for a new trial.
1. The plaintiff claims that the ruling of the trial court was error, because the stipulation and condition in the bond for the payment of interest was surplusage; hence the alteration of the bond was in an immaterial part thereof, and did not affect the validity of the bond.
The basis of this claim is the assumption that the statute does not require or contemplate that the interest should be secured by the bond. It is true that the statute does not in express terms require that the bond shall secure the payment of the interest, but it is equally true that it does not in express terms require that the condition of the bond shall...
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