J. EVERETT BULL, Appellant, v. S. D. LARTEY, Appellee.

APPEAL FROM THE CIRCUIT COURT OF THE SIXTH JUDICIAL CIRCUIT, MONTSERRADO COUNTY. Argued March 16, 17, 1966. Decided June 30, 1966. 1. Documents submitted to the Supreme Court as addenda to the records certified from the lower court will not be cognized unless a motion for diminution of record is granted, in which case the lower court will be ordered to correct the record of remitting certified copies of the documents. 2. An appeal bond without a revenue stamp is defective. 3. An appeal bond which by its terms does not indemnify the appellee is defective. 4. When an appeal bond is defective and the defect has not been corrected, the appeal may be dismissed. 5. In an appeal by multiple appellants, the appeal bond or bonds should be jointly or severally executed by all or each of the appellants. On motion by the appellee in an appeal from a judgment in an ejectment action, the appeal was dismissed. Simpson and Bull Law Firm for appellant. and Cooper Law Firm for appellee. Beysolow MR. JUSTICE ROBERTS delivered the opinion of the Court. At the call of this case for review based upon the bill of exceptions, it was noted that appellee had filed a motion requiring us not to delve into the merits of the appeal but to dismiss same because of legal blunders of appellant. With this motion before us, we are halted and find it necessary to examine the motion with a view of satisfying ourselves whether the motion warrants a dismissal of the appeal. Count 1 of the motion attacks the validity of the appeal bond, alleging that the bond is void of the required revenue stamp as contemplated by appeal statutes. Before proceeding to other counts, the correctness of this allegation needs to be ascertained by recourse to the records. 367 368 LIBERIAN LAW REPORTS The records certified to this Court on September 3o, 1965, disclose an appeal bond which reads thus : “Republic of Liberia “APPEAL BOND “Montserrado County “KNOW ALL MEN BY THESE PRESENTS THAT WE, J. Everett Bull, Appellant, Principal, and Edith Harris and Wilmot D. Stubblefield, Sureties, being freeholders or householders within the Republic of Liberia, are held and firmly bound unto the Sheriff for the County of Montserrado in the sum of one thousand dollars ($i,000.00) current money of this Republic to be paid to S. D. Lartey, appellee or his legal representatives; for which payment we bind ourselves and our personal representatives, jointly and severally firmly by these presents. “The condition of this obligation is that we will indemnify the Appellant from the judgment of His Honor Alfred L. Weeks, Assigned Judge of the Sixth Judicial Circuit, Montserrado County, rendered on the 22nd day of February, 1965, in the case S. D. Lartey, plaintiff, versus J. Everett Bull, defendant, Action of Ejectment, and will comply with the judgment of the court to which said appeal is taken or any other court to which the said action may be removed. “In witness whereof we have hereunto subscribed our names this 17th day of March 1965. “J. EVERETT BULL, “In presence of : [Signature not clear] [Signature not clear] “Defendant-Principal “Approved for (One thousand dollars) this 18th day of March 1965 “ALFRED L. WEEKS, “EDITH E. HARRIS, $1,000.00 “WILMOTT D. STUBBLEFIELD, “Sureties. “Assigned Judge. Filed March 18, 1965.” LIBERIAN LAW REPORTS 369 Examining this bond as closely as possible, there seems to be no indication of a stamp affixed to the original bond. Nevertheless the appellant, in his resistance to the motion, denies this omission and makes profert a copy of an appeal bond in this case certified by the clerk of this Court, J. B. P. Morris. This second certified appeal bond differs much from the former, in that the second indicates that the original was stamped. At this point several thoughts plague our minds. How should we regard this subsequent certified bond, fictitious, fake, or spurious? How should we consider the conduct of the clerk, deliberate, foul, or artifice? How should we countenance the procedure of appellant bringing into this Court for our consideration a certified record which was not made a part of those regularly sent up by the clerk of the lower court with a view of correcting the records? By some mutual understanding between appellant and clerk this document appeared. This Court has held that documents or papers proffered for consideration in connection with a record certified from the lower court will be rejected unless a motion for diminution of record is made and granted, in which event the lower court will be ordered to remit the documents or papers in order to correct the record. This statutory procedure is undoubtedly known to appellee’s counsel ; nevertheless they elected to evade this procedure. We cannot recognize this purported certified appeal bond. If we would consider such a document for relief of this appellant, we would be opening a floodgate to many irregularities and complications for ourselves. We are therefore left with the opinion that the appeal bond was not stamped, and because of statutes on appeal and numerous opinions of this Court, the motion is well taken. The motion raises another statutory issue relating to appeals. It is a mandatory requirement that the appellant indemnify the appellee from all costs or injury arising from the appeal if unsuccessful, and that he comply with the judgment of the appellate court or of any other 370 LIBERIAN LAW REPORTS court to which the case is removed. Very strangely and humorously, in appellant’s bond he indemnifies himself. This, in our opinion, is an inadvertency but not a fatal error, and could be remedied if appellant had attached seriousness to his case realizing that caution is the parent of safety. Whilst it is true that honest errors must be pitied, and not ridiculed, it is also true that one who seeks pity must pursue it. Our statutes provide for such remedy thus : “If any material matter is, by error, accident, or design omitted from the record on appeal or misstated therein, the party affected thereby or the parties by stipulation may apply to the appellate court to have the error or misstatement corrected. . . .” 1956 CODE 6:I618. This not having been done, the motion to dismiss the appeal is well founded. See also Tee v. Chea, 12 L.L.R. 1 57 ( 1 954) The last count of the motion is that of disjoinder of parties which states : “Although the action at bar is jointly instituted against three defendants, that is to say : J. Everett Bull, Peter 0. Oghogho, and Milad Shaheen, and two of them, that is to say J. Everett Bull and Milad Shaheen, appeared and contested said action and a judgment was rendered against them which they have appealed to this Honorable Court, yet the appeal bond in question has only been executed by appellant J. Everett Bull in exclusion of his co-appellant Milad Shaheen, when they should have jointly executed said bond; especially so since there is no appeal bond in the record separately executed by said co-appellant Milad Shaheen. Because of these serious legal defects in the appeal bond in the case at bar, which bond appellee respectfully requests this Honorable Court to take judicial notice of, appellee prays that the appeal be dismissed with costs against the appellants.” LIBERIAN LAW REPORTS 371 Recourse to the record confirms this count and is upheld by us, yet in the words of Mr. Justice Shannon, speaking for this Court in Tee v. Chea, supra, at 12 L.L.R. 159: “The plea of the disjoinder is therefore sustained ; but we have not decided that it would, independently of any other issue, be sufficient to effect the dismissal of an appeal.” We regret our inability to sieve into the merits or demerits of the appeal and express the hope that all appellants will in the future carefully and seriously superintendent their cases, thereby giving us an opportunity to review the issues involved in the exceptions taken to rulings of the lower court. The appeal is hereby dismissed with costs against appellant. And it is hereby so ordered. Appeal dismissed.