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82 Mass. 254

Doane v. Eldridge

Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court

Decided October 15, 1860

Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court · decided 1860-10-15

<p>If a collector of taxes gives a bond with sureties for the collection and the payment to the town and county treasurers of the amount of a tax which has been assessed, and for the collection of which he has received a warrant; and the assessors afterwards reassess and reduce the tax for excess of the overlay, and alter the sums named in the bond accordingly, without the knowledge of the obligors, and deliver no new warrant to the collector; no action can be maintained on the bond.</p>

Decided 1860-10-15

Metcalf, J.

¶1The alteration of the bond, after it was executed by the defendants, and without their consent, discharged them from all liability under it. It does not now truly represent the obligation into which they entered. That obligation was, that Jonathan Eldridge should act faithfully as collector of a tax of $ 2572.82, which had been already assessed. By the alteration of the bond, the obligation which it purported to impose on the defendants was, that the said Eldridge should act faithfully as collector of a tax of $ 2490.01, which was assessed after the bond was executed. This obligation they never consented to incur.

¶2Suppose the bond had not been altered, or that it should now be regarded, in law, as if not altered, yet the defendants would not be liable under it; for there has been no breach of its condition. Indeed, it is only in its altered state that the plaintiff seeks to enforce it, by showing that its condition has been broken.

¶3On the ground that the bond has been materially altered, without the defendants’ consent, and the obligee now seeks to *256charge the obligors for breach of a contract into which they never entered — without expressing an opinion upon any other point raised in the defence — there must be

¶4 Judgment for the defendants.

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