Governor ex rel. Cnty. Tr. v. Matlock

• Decision Date: 31 December 1826
• Citation: 12 N.C. 214
• Court: North Carolina Supreme Court
• Parties: THE GOVERNOR for the use of the County Trustee v. JOHN MATLOCK and others.

12 N.C. 214

THE GOVERNOR for the use of the County Trustee

v.JOHN MATLOCK and others.

SUPREME COURT OF NORTH CAROLINA

DECEMBER TERM, 1826

From Rockingham.

Where the condition of a bond has appropriate words to secure the performance of a certain class of duties imposed by law on a public officer, general terms superadded thereto (though large enough to include all his official duties) shall not extend the liability of the surety to other duties for which by law a separate bond is directed, but omitted to be given.

THE defendant Matlock, on being appointed sheriff of Rockingham, entered into a penal bond in the sum of £5,000 with the other defendants as his sureties, payable to the Governor and his successors, the condition of which was that he should well and truly execute all process and precepts to him directed, and pay and satisfy all sums of money by him received or levied by virtue of any process into the proper office by which the same by the tenor thereof ought to be paid, or to the person or persons to whom the same should be due, his, her, or their executors, etc., and "in all other things well and truly and faithfully execute the said office of sheriff during his continuance therein." No other bond was given by him, and the county contingent tax having been collected and unaccounted for, the present action was brought upon this bond to recover the amount of that tax.

A verdict having been taken below for the plaintiff, subject to the opinion of the court whether there was any breach of

the condition before set forth, his Honor, Judge Norwood, who presided, directed the verdict to be set aside, and gave judgment for the defendant; whereupon the plaintiff appealed.

HENDERSON, J. The sheriff was not originally a fiscal officer; but at a very early period of the Provincial Government it was made his duty to collect the taxes which were laid by the Legislature, and it is admitted that the obligation to do so was embraced by his official bond. I presume that the Revolution, of itself, produced no change in this particular; it was only a change of sovereignty. But immediately after it, tax gatherers, as they were called, were appointed to collect the taxes and pay them to the district treasurer; upon which the collection of the taxes ceased to be within the duty or power of the sheriff.

Afterwards the sheriff was directed to receive the taxesfrom the tax gatherers and pay them to the treasurer; soon after which it was made his duty to receive them directly from the people, and bond payable to the Governor was required for the performance of this duty. This bond is in addition to his ordinary, or, as it is commonly called,...