surety
Definitions from Case Law · United States Supreme Court
Definitions from Case Law
From 314 U.S. 314 - American Surety Co of New York v. Bethlehem Nat Bank of Bethlehem Pa · 1941Most cited · 312 citing opinions
as secured creditor
The surety is a special kind of secured creditor. For its claim against the principal is secured by its right of subrogation to the remedies of the creditor which it has been compelled to pay.
How the Supreme Court has restated “surety”
Each Supreme Court definition of “surety,” sized by how often later courts cited it. “Change” is measured by wording overlap with earlier definitions — a rough signal, not a semantic judgment.
How often courts cite the cases defining “surety”
Court decisions citing the 11 opinions that defined “surety” — 774 in all, by decade. Counts are citations to the defining cases as a whole, not verified uses of the term. The dip in the most recent years is a data-coverage gap, not a real trend — our corpus holds fewer opinions from the latest years.
All 11 definitions, chronological · 1827–1941
- ORIGINAL
the taking of a collateral security, without suspending the right to sue on the bond, could not bar the action on the bond.
collateral security does not bar action on bond
That a surety who discharges the debt of the principal, shall, in general, succeed to the rights of the creditor, as well direct as incidental, is strongly exemplified in those cases in which the surety is permitted to succeed to those rights, even against bail, who are themselves in many respects regarded as sureties.
rights of
as against a surety, neither a court of law nor a court of equity will lend its aid to affect him beyond the plain and necessary import of his undertaking. Equity will not, as against him, assist in completing an imperfect or defective instrument, much less will it add a new term or condition to what he has stipulated. He must be permitted to remain in precisely the situation in which he has placed himself; and it is no justification or excuse with another, for attempting to change his situation, to allege or show that he would be benefited by such change. He is said to possess an interest in the letter of his contract.
strict construction of contract
The undertaking of the surety is essentially a pledge to make good the misfeasance or non-feasance of his principal to an amount co-extensive with the penalty of his bond.
The general rule is, to attribute to the obligation of a surety the same extent as that of the principal. Unless from the terms of the contract an intention appears to reduce his liability within more narrow bounds, a restriction will not be imposed by construction contrary to the nature of the engagement. If the terms of his engagement are general and unrestricted, and embrace the entire subject, (omnem causam,) his liability will be measured by that of the principal, and embrace the same accessories and consequences, (connexorum et dependentium.)
scope of obligation
in order to charge the surety for the default of the officer, it must appear from the evidence that the public moneys in question came into his hands, either in point of fact or in judgment of law, previous to the time when the term of office expired.
on official bond
any variation in the agreement to which the surety has subscribed, which is made without the surety's knowledge or consent, and which may prejudice him, or which may amount to a substitution of a new agreement for the one he subscribed, will discharge the surety
discharge by variation
the liability of the surety cannot exceed that of his principal; and that amount having been fixed by a judgment at law, it formed the rule to determine the sum to be recovered in this suit.
whatever concludes his principal as an obligor concludes him. He cannot attack collaterally a decree made against an administrator for whose fidelity to his trust he has bound himself
This presumption is never indulged in the case of a mere surety, whose duty is measured alone by the legal force of the bond, and who is under no moral obligation whatever to pay the obligee, independent of his covenant, and consequently there is nothing on which to found an equity for the interposition of a court of chancery.