BOND - Steven J. Coker
Subject: BOND
From: Steven J. Coker
Date: December 22, 1998

Extracted From:
      A LAW DICTIONARY ..., SIXTH EDITION, 1856
      by John Bouvier
      CHILDS & PETERSON, PHILADELPHIA


BOND, contract. An obligation or bond is a deed whereby the obligor, obliges
himself, his heirs, executors and administrators, to pay a certain sum of money
to another at a day appointed.... If this be all, the bond is called a single
one, simplex obligatio; but there is generally a condition added, that if the
obligor pays a smaller sum, or does, or omits to do some particular act, the
obligation shall be void.... The word bond ex vi termini imports a sealed
instrument.... It is proposed to consider: 

1. The form of a bond, namely, the words by which it may be made, and the
ceremonies required. 
2. The condition. 
3. The performance or discharge. 


1. The form of a bond, namely, the words by which it may be made, and the
ceremonies required. 

  a. There must be parties to a bond, an obligor and obligee : for where a bond
was made with condition that the obligor should pay twenty pounds to such person
or persons; as E. H. should, by her last will and testament in writing, name and
appoint the same to be paid, and E. H. did not appoint any person to whom the
same should be paid, it was held that the money was not payable to the executors
of E. H....  No particular form of words are essential to create an obligation,
but any words which declare the intention of the parties, and denote that one is
bound to the other, will be sufficient, provided the ceremonies mentioned below
have been observed....

  b. It must be in writing, on paper or parchment, and if it be made on other
materials it is void....

  c. It must be sealed, though it is not necessary that it should be mentioned
in the writing that it is sealed....

  d. It must be delivered by the party whose bond it is, to the other.... But
the delivery and acceptance may be by attorney. The date is not considered of
the substance of a deed, and therefore a bond which either has no date or an
impossible one is still good, provided the real day of its being dated or given,
that is, delivered, can be proved....


2. The condition. 

The condition is either for the payment of money, or for the performance of
something else. In the latter case, if the condition be against some rule of law
merely, positively impossible at the time of making it, uncertain or insensible,
the condition alone is void, and the bond shall stand single and unconditional;
for it is the folly of the obligor to enter into such an obligation, from which
he can never be released. If it be to do a thing malum in se, the obligation
itself is void, the whole contract being unlawful....


3. The performance or discharge. 

  a. When, by the condition of an obligation, the act to be done to the obligee
is of its own nature transitory, as payment of money, delivery of charters, or
the like, and no time is limited, it ought to be performed in convenient
time....

  b. A payment before the day is good ... or before action brought....

  c. If the condition be to do a thing within a certain time, it may be
performed the last day of the time appointed....

  d. If the condition be to do an act, without limiting any time, he who has the
benefit may do it at what time he pleases....

  e. When the place where the act to be performed is agreed upon, the party who
is to perform it, is not obliged to seek the opposite party elsewhere; nor is he
to whom it is to be performed bound to accept of the performance in another
place....

  f. For what amounts to a breach of a condition in a bond see Bac. Abr.
Conditions, 0; Com. Dig. Conditions, M; and this Dict. tit. Breach.

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