91 Iowa 198 | Iowa | 1894
I. On the third Monday of September, 1890, defendant Morris was elected treasurer of plaintiff, and on the twenty-third of said month duly qualified as such officer by the execution and delivery to plaintiff of a bond containing the usual conditions, and which was signed by the other defendants as sureties. It is claimed that at the termination of his term of office he was owing plaintiff, as such treasurer, the sum of two thousand, two hundred and ninety-six dollars and
II. The defense in this action, in brief, is that the defalcation on the part of the treasurer occurred during-his term of office prior to the execution of the bond sued on; that the sureties are not concluded by the-settlement, because the money was not produced, and it was therefore not such a settlement as the law contemplated; that the bond was materially altered after-defendants signed it. This court has held that when an officer charged with the custody of public funds is-re-elected one or more times, and serves two or more terms, the sureties upon a subsequent bond become prima facie liable for such balance of the previous account as is chargeable to their principal. District Tp. of Fox v. McCord, 54 Iowa, 346, 6 N. W. Rep. 536;
III. It is said that when the bond was signed by these sureties there was indorsed upon it in the handwriting of Morris the amount which should have been in his hands as treasurer, and that defendants were chargeable with notice of the amount of money on hand. The evidence, we think, abundantly shows that this indorsement was not on the bond at the time these sureties signed it, but was put on afterward. It was, therefore, no notice to them. In view of our holding as to the settlement, it is not necessary to consider the effect of the claimed alteration of the bond after it was signed by the sureties. Ror the reasons given, the judgment is reversed.