Witham v. Gage

1924 OK 839, 230 P. 718, 106 Okla. 121, 1924 Okla. LEXIS 571
CourtSupreme Court of Oklahoma
DecidedSeptember 30, 1924
Docket14708
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 1924 OK 839 (Witham v. Gage) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Oklahoma primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Witham v. Gage, 1924 OK 839, 230 P. 718, 106 Okla. 121, 1924 Okla. LEXIS 571 (Okla. 1924).

Opinion

Opinion by

PINKHAM, O.

The plaintiff in error, M. W. Witham, obtained a judgment against W. M. Gage in the city court of Muskogee for $223, together with interest.

Gage filed in said city court an undertaking on appeal to the district court of Muskogee county with the other defendants in error, O. S. Thompson and John Long, as sureties, which is in words and figures as follows:

“In the city court of Muskogee county, state of Oklahoma. Before Chas. Wheeler, judge of said court. W. M. Witham, Plaintiff, v. W. M. Gage, Defendant. No. 1194, District Court.
“We, W. M. Gage, as principal and-as sureties and residents of said-county, hereby undertake and bind ourselves to the said W. M. Gage in the above entitled action, in the sum of $450-that being double the amount of the judgment and costs rendered against said appellant W. M. Gage in said action, that said appellant will prosecute his appeal from said judgment to the district court of said Muskogee county to effect and without unnecessary delay, and if judgment be rendered against — h-on the appeal that —h-will satisfy such judgment and costs.
“Witness our hands this 22 day of March, 1922.
“(Signed) W. M. Gage,
“(Signed) O. S. Thompson,
“(Signed) John Long.”

The undertaking was approved by the judge of the city court.

The plaintiff in error, Witham, filed in the district court a motion for an order requiring the defendant in error, W. M. Gage, to amend and supply irregularities and omissions in said undertaking or to furnish a new and sufficient undertaking.

At the hearing of said motion on the 5th day of August, 1922, Gage asked leave to file a good and sufficient undertaking, correct in form and sufficient in amount, and the court thereupon granted leave to file such undertaking on or before the 15th day of August, 1922. On the 26th day of August, 1922, on motion of plaintiff in error, the appeal was dismissed by the district court for the reason that the defendant in error, Gage, failed to comply with the order of the court previously made, and the cause was remanded to the city court to be proceeded with according to law.

On the 30tb day of August, 1922, the plaintiff in error caused an execution to be issued out of the city court of Muskogee directed to the sheriff of Muskogee county against the defendant in error, Gage, which said execution was returned by said sheriff wholly unsatisfied.

On the 8th day of December, 1922, the plaintiff in error brought this action in the district court of Muskogee county against the defendants in error, W. M. Gage, O. S. Thompson, and John Long, on the undertaking in the said appeal, in which he sets up two causes of action.

In the first cause of action the plaintiff in error, plaintiff in the' trial court, asks the court to reform a bond and fill in the name of plaintiff in error, M. W. Witham, as obligee in said bond, and to strike the name of W. M. Gage, and also to add in the body of said bond the names of O. S. Thompson and John Long as sureties and fill certain other blanks so that the bond may be rendered good and valid, and such an undertaking as will justify a recovery thereon by plaintiff. In the second cause of action the plaintiff seeks to recover judgment on said bond as reformed and corrected.

On the 8th day of January, 1923, the defendants in error O. S. Thompson and John Long filed a general demurrer to the plaintiff’s petition, and on ,the same date the defendant ip error Gage filed his general demurrer to the said petition. On the hearing of said cause the district court sustained the demurrers to the plaintiff’s petition, and the plaintiff electing ¡to stand on his petition the court thereupon rendered judgment for the defendíante and against the plaintiff .flor costs.

Plaintiff in error thereupon filed his transcript; and petition in error in this court assigning as error the order of the district court sustaining the demurrers of defendants in error, and rendering judgment in their favor and against the plaintiff in error.

It will be observed that the name, W. M. Gage, the party against whom the judgment was rendered in the city court and from which judgment he appealed to the district court, was inserted in the undertaking on appeal both as obligee and obligor and that the names of the sureties who executed the bond, O. S. Thompson and John Long, were omitted from the body of the undertaking.

The court in sustaining the demurrer of defendants in error and dismissing plaintiff in qrror’s petition seemingly relied upon the theory that the bond in question was a *123 nullity and insufficient to ’confer jurisdiction on the court.

It is not necessary that the names of the sureties should appear in the body of the bond. 4 R. C. L. 551. The chief defect in the.bond was because the name of the defendant in error Gage appeared as the obligee instead of the name of plaintiff in error, Witham.

This evident mistake — and it could have been nothing more — while irregular, did not render the bond void.

A true copy of the undertaking involved was attached to plaintiff’s petition, and an examination of it shows clearly that in an action in the city court the plaintiff in error was plaintiff and the defendant in error, defendant; that in said action a judgment was rendered against the defendant, Gage, and a copy of the judgment of the judge of the city court was attached to plaintiff’s petition.

Where there can be no mistake as to the purpose of the bond, or for whose 'benefit it was given, and where the mistake was such as could be corrected, such a bond is not Void.

In the case of Ryndak v. Seawell, 23 Okla. 759, 102 Pac, 125, in an opinion by Hayes, J., it is said:

“Bonds, like contracts, are to be construed, if possible, that they may have effect and to the end that the purposes and the intention of the parties executing the contract may be promoted rather than defeated.’’

In that case the rule announced in Rose v. Winn. 51 Tex. 545, wherein the court said:

“In regard to ordinary bonds, when the intention is manifest from the instrument itself, thé court will- transpose or reject insensible words and supply an accidental omission in order to give effect to that intention.”

—is quoted with approval.

In the Ryndak Case, supra, the language of the bond did not recite that the parties executing the bond bind “themselves,” but recited only that they bound their heirs and personal representatives, the word “ourselves” being omitted entirely. The court held that “the failure to insert the word ‘ourselves,’ after the word ‘bind’ is not fatal to this obligation.”

In Embry v. Midland Band Co., 50 Okla. 610, 151 Pac. 218, it is held in the syllabus:

“A dissolving bond given in attachment proceedings before a justice of ithe peace which substantially complies with section 6311, Snyder’s Oom¡p.

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Related

State Ex Rel. Green v. Condren
1936 OK 737 (Supreme Court of Oklahoma, 1936)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
1924 OK 839, 230 P. 718, 106 Okla. 121, 1924 Okla. LEXIS 571, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/witham-v-gage-okla-1924.