United States v. Meade

• Decision Date: 30 March 1905
• Docket Number: Civil 845
• Parties: UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Plaintiff and Appellant, v. WILLIAM K. MEADE et al., Defendants and Appellees
• Court: Arizona Supreme Court

80 P. 326

9 Ariz. 209

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Plaintiff and Appellant, v. WILLIAM K. MEADE et al., Defendants and Appellees

Civil No. 845

Supreme Court of Arizona

March 30, 1905

APPEAL from a judgment of the District Court of the First Judicial District. George R. Davis, Judge. Reversed.

On rehearing. For former opinion, see 8 Ariz. 367, 76 P. 467.

Frederick S. Nave, United States Attorney, and John H. Campbell Assistant United States Attorney, for Appellant.

Ben Goodrich, for Appellees.

For briefs, see 8 Ariz. 367.

OPINION

SLOAN J.

-- The rehearing was granted in this case upon the showing made by the government that the treasury transcript offered in evidence, and rejected by the trial court, evidences that Meade, during the life of the bond sued upon, was improperly and contrary to law allowed certain items upon his accounts as marshal which appear therein, and that the sum of these items is the amount sought to be recovered in this action, and to afford the counsel for the government a fuller opportunity of arguing the admissibility of the transcript as proper evidence to show a breach of the bond under the pleadings. While we are now satisfied that the transcript does, as contended by counsel for the government show such items, and does with sufficient certainty indicate that these were allowed during the life of the bond, yet upon further consideration, we still adhere to the conclusion heretofore expressed by the chief justice in the opinion of the court -- that under the pleadings the evidence was properly excluded. In substance, the complaint charges that Meade was United States marshal, and, as such, executed, with his co-defendants as sureties, the bond sued upon; that on May 28, 1890, a balance of five hundred and seventy-two dollars was held by Meade, as marshal, which had come into his hands by reason of advances and payments made him by the government; that on said date the said Meade brought suit in the court of claims against the government, and that in this suit the United States obtained judgment upon the counterclaim filed by it against him in the sum of $2,470.32; that, of the amount thus found due the government by the court of claims, the sum of five hundred and seventy-two dollars represented advances made to the marshal during the period covered by the bond; and that Meade has not paid the government the said sum, or any part thereof, although requested so to do. The action was dismissed as to Meade, and continued as to the sureties. The...