Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 8.djvu/705

 CNITED STATES V. MOSKLY. C81 �18 considered as holding it subject to all legal dispositions of the court." �In the case before Mr. Justice Story the amendment moved for was the addition of a new substantive cause of action against which the statuts of limitations had run, and it was disallowed for that reason. With regard to the objection that the rights of the sureties might be affected, he says : �"I will only add that a third objection, that it might affect the rights of the sureties on the bond given for the property, has not been considered of weight in aiiy cases at common- law. When the property has been delivered on bonds it is too much to contend that the rights of the court can be increased or diminished by that circumstance. Every person so bailing the property is considered as holding it subject to all legal dispositions by the court. A fortiori, the objection would, with great difficulty, find support in a court exercising admiralty jurisdiction." �In The Maggie Jones, 5 Cent. Law J. 263, it was insisted that an amendment submitting the name of one Bradley to be added as co- libellant discharged the sureties. But the court says : �"This position is untenable. I regard it as settled by the case of Newell v. Norton, 3 Wall. 257, that the undertaking of the surety is practically co-ex- tensive with the liability of the vessel in that particular action, and subject to any amendment which the court has power to make. The addition of a new party, or, indeed, any other amendment which the court has power to make in the original case, has usUally been held not to affect the undertak- ing of the surety." ' �In the case of Evere v. Sager, 28 Mich. 47, the court says: " If the court possessed the power to order or allow such an amendment, irrespective pf the stipulations of the parties, the sureties would have been bound by its action, because their obligation must be uhderstood as contem- plating a possible exercise of such power." ' ' �Numerous other authorities might, no doubt, be fotind on thiS point tinder consideration. Enough have been cited to establish that where property under seizure has been delivered to a claimant on a bond for value, conditioned he will pay the value into court if a final decree of condemnation be rendered against the property, his liability and that of his sureties is fixed as soon as the court has legally ren- deted such a decree in the action. And it is immaterial whether the dectee has been rendered on the original libel, or on a libel that has been legally and properly amended, subsequently to the execution df the bond. ■ ��� �