Wiswell v. Munroe

4 Ala. 9
CourtSupreme Court of Alabama
DecidedJune 15, 1842
StatusPublished
Cited by14 cases

This text of 4 Ala. 9 (Wiswell v. Munroe) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Alabama primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Wiswell v. Munroe, 4 Ala. 9 (Ala. 1842).

Opinion

ORMOND, J.

The facts of this case are, briefly, that Denys Casey & Co. recovered a judgment in the County Court of Mobile, against Charles Cullum; from which the lat[14]*14ter prosecuted a writ of error to the Supreme Court, with the appellant Wiswell as his surety, where the judgment- was affirmed. Cullum then filed his bill in Chancery, praying an injunction of the judgmeut at law, which was granted, and he thereupon gave bond, with the appellee Munroe as his surety The bill was dismissed — the injunction dissolved, and the injunction bond directed to have the force and effect of a judgment, and that the Register certify the same, together with a transcript of the bond, to the court of law.

At the succeeding Term, Munroe filed his petition, setting forth that in the bond executed by him as the surety of Cullum to obtain the injunction, the judgment to be enjoined was described as a judgment of the County Court instead of a judgment of the Supreme Court, in which it had been affirmed, — that therefore the bond did not operate as an injunction or super-sedeas to the judgment, — and prays a revocation of that portion of the decree which orders the bond to have the force and effect of a judgment.

The Chancellor, on the hearing, set aside so much of the decree of the last Term as gave to the bond the force and effect of a judgment ; from which Wiswell prayed an appeal, which was granted.

Without, at this time, entering into an examination of the sufficiency of this bond, we will proceed to the consideration of the question, whether a decree is necessary to give to an injunction bond the force and effect of a judgment after a dissolution of the injunction.

By the act of 1826, [Aik. Dig. 291,] it was enacted, “that every bond executed for the purpose of obtaining an injunction, shall, on the dissolution of the said injunction, have the force and effect of a judgment; and it shall be lawiul for the party or parties whose judgment may have been enjoined, to take out' execution against all the obligors in the bond, for the amount of the judgment which shall have been enjoined, together with lawful interest thereon, and also the costs incurred in and about the said Chancery proceedings.” It seems perfectly clear that this is a legislative declaration of the effect of the bond when executed, and did not contemplate any action of the Court to give it the “force and effect bf a judgment.” That consequence attached to it the moment the injunction [15]*15was dissolved. From that time the bond became, in effect, a judgment, upon which the party whose judgment had been enjoined, could immediately, and without application to the Court,-as in the case of any other judgment, sue out execution; and an order of the Chancellor, upon the dissolution of an injunction, that such bond should not have the force and effect of a judgment, would be as nugatory as his decree that it should have such an effect, would be unnecessary.

These propositions are indeed so self-evident, that no argument can make them plainer, were it not for the supposed change in the law, by the 6th section of the act to regulate the practice in the Courts of Chancery, passed January, 1841. [Meek’s Sup. 65.] Which provides, “that whenever an injunction is ordered to be dissolved, either with or without the six per cent, damage, and the injunction bond is ordered to have the force and effect of a judgment, it shall be the duty of the Register to certify the same, together with the transcript of the bond, to the court of law, to the end that the plaintiff at law may have execution on the injunction bond, as well as for the six per cent, damage, if any be awarded.”

Was it intended by the Legislature, by this enactment, to confer on the Chancellor the power of declaring whether a bond executed for the purpose of obtaining an injunction to a judgment at law, should have the force and effect of a judgment or not, upon the dissolution of the injunction? We think such was not the intention of the Legislature.

If such an effect be given to it, it will be a repeal by implication, of the act of 1826, previously cited, which declares the legal effect of these bonds.

The well established rules of construction are, that the repeal of a law by implication, is never favored; and that it there be two affirmative statutes upon the same subject, the one does not repeal the other if both may consist together; and it is the duty of Courts to seek for such a construction as will reconcile both. [Warder v. Arelle, 2 Wash. 282.]

“ A thing which is within the letter of the statute, is not within the statute, unless it be within the intention of the makers.” [6th Bac. Ab. 385.]

The intention of the Legislature in the passage of this act,is sufficiently plain. Previous to the establishment of the [16]*16separate Chancery Courts, the functions of Common Law Judge and Chancellor being united in the same person, and the same person, as Clerk, having the custody of the records in Common Law and Chancery cases — upon the dissolution of an injunction, that fact being known to the Clerk, he immediately issued execution on the injunction bond. But after the separation of these Courts, some difficulty seems to have been felt — though certainly without any just cause as appears to us — in making known to the Clerk of the Law Court, the fact of the dissolution of the injunction. To obviate this difficulty, real or supposed, was the evident design of this section, which makes it the duty of the Register to certify the fact that the injunction has been dissolved, to the Clerk of the Court where the judgment was rendered, together with a transcript of the bond, that execution may issue thereon.

It is most unreasonable to suppose that the Legislature, intending to provide against a particular evil, and providing the appropriate remedy, should, at the same time, intend by indirection, to repeal the law which they were endeavoring to make more efficient. If it had been the design by that act to make such an important change in the law, as that injunction bonds should have the force and effect of a judgment, only in the event the Chancellor should so order and decree, it is impossible to suppose it would have been left to construction, and be carefully wrapt up in doubtful and ambiguous phrases.

We conclude therefore that such was not the intention of the Legislature, and therefore if within the letter of the law, is not within the statute.

It is certainly true, that where a law is plain and unambiguous it is binding on the Courts, and they cannot speculate on consequences. Such in our opinion is not the case here. Even the literal interpretation of- the statute is satisfied by supposing the terms “ordered to have the force and effect of a judgment,” to mean, ordered or directed by the existing law, to have the force and effect of a judgment. This construction is not, in our opinion, so strained and unnatural as to suppose the Legislature intended by this ambiguous phrase to change the law as it had existed almost from the foundation of the State Government, and for the certainty and unerring pre-[17]*17cisión of the existing law, to substitute the opinion of the Chancellor.

It is laid down by C. J. Marshall, in the United States v. Fisher, [2d Cranch, 342,] that where great inconvenience will result from a particular construction, that construction is to be avoided, unless the meaning of the Legislature be plain.

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Bluebook (online)
4 Ala. 9, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/wiswell-v-munroe-ala-1842.