Green v. United States (76 U.S. 655)

IN error to the Circuit Court for the Southern District of Ohio.

This was an action of debt brought by the United States against one Green, and the sureties on his official bond, as agent for paying pensions at Cincinnati. Seven sureties were named in the bond, all of whom executed it. The defendants charged as sureties, besides filing a joint plea of non est factum, each filed separate special pleas, first, to the effect that they signed the writing whilst the same was in blank, as to the names of the obligors, at the request of the principal, Green, upon the assurance and agreement that it should also be signed and sealed by other parties (named in the plea), as joint obligors with the defendants, and should not be delivered as a bond until signed and sealed by said persons; that those other persons never did sign the same; and that the defendants never would have executed the bond except upon the condition that they should sign it. A second plea averred that the bond was signed whilst it was in blank, as to the names of the obligors, on the conditions above-named, and being thus signed was left with Green as an escrow, to be by him delivered to the plaintiff in case it should be executed by the other persons named, and not otherwise; but that those other persons never did sign the bond, and it never was delivered as a valid bond of the defendants, and thereby became wholly annulled and vacated.