Griswold v. Hazard

• Decision Date: 14 January 1886
• Parties: GRISWOLD v. HAZARD and others.
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of Rhode Island

26 F. 135

GRISWOLD v. HAZARD and others.

United States Circuit Court, D. Rhode Island.

January 14, 1886

Samuel R. Honey and Arnold Green, for complainant.

Edwin Metcalf and Elias Merwin, for respondents.

Before COLT and CARPENTER, JJ.

CARPENTER J.

This is a bill to cancel or in the alternative to reform a bond given by Thomas C. Durant, as principal, and John N.

A Griswold and S. Dexter Bradford, as sureties, to the respondents. It appears that at the September term, 1868, of the supreme court of Rhode Island, for the county of Newport Isaac P. Hazard brought his bill of complaint against Durant and others and the Credit Mobilier of America, in which he alleged that Durant was largely indebted to the Credit Mobilier, and that the corporation had refused to demand and collect the sums due from him, and prayed that Durant be decreed to account with the Credit Mobilier, and to pay over the sums due to that corporation. Rowland G. Hazard was a respondent in that bill, and he and the other respondents in this bill appear to have been interested therein by reason of the fact that they were stockholders in the Credit Mobilier. On motion, a writ of ne exeat was issued on that bill, by virtue of which Durant was arrested on the evening of Saturday, the twenty-second day of August, 1868. A discussion then ensued as to the form of bond which might be given as the condition of the release of Durant from arrest, in consequence of which discussion Durant was released on his oral promise to appear at an early hour on Monday morning the twenty-fourth of August, and execute the required bond. On the day appointed he appeared with his sureties, and executed the bond which is the subject of this suit, and which is a bond in the sum of $53,735, conditioned 'that said Thomas C. Durant shall on his part abide and perform the orders and decrees of the supreme court of the state of Rhode Island in the suit in equity of Isaac P. Hazard and others against said Thomas C. Durant and others, now pending in said court within and for the county of Newport. ' The evidence shows, without doubt and without contradiction, that this bond was drawn by counsel for Isaac P. Hazard, and was presented to the complainant, and was signed by him as and for the bond which on the Saturday evening before he had agreed to sign. The complainant alleges-- First, that the bond which was proposed on Saturday, and which he agreed to sign, was a bail-bond, or a bond in the nature of a bail-bond, which would bind him in the penalty only on condition that he failed to produce the body of Durant to answer to such decree as the court should make; and that, when the counsel for Hazard, on Monday morning, presented to him for his signature the bond in question, without explaining to him that it was in effect different from a bail-bond, such presentation amounted to a fraud, from which he should be relieved by the cancellation of the instrument so represented and signed by him. In the second place, he alleges that, at the conversation on Saturday, the bond which was then agreed to be signed was agreed and understood by both parties thereto to be a bail-bond, and that the subsequent execution of a bond of a different character was a mutual mistake of fact, from which he should be relieved by reforming the instrument so as to make it conform with the contract actually made between the parties.

We do not think the evidence supports either of these allegations.

At the conversation on Saturday evening, at which the bond was agreed to be given, there were present Mr. Bradley and Mr Peckham, who were counsel for Isaac P. Hazard; and also Thomas C. Durant; John N. A. Griswold; S. Dexter Bradford; Henry W. Gray, who was a friend of Durant; William D. Lake, the sheriff of the county; and Mr. Van Zandt, who was...