Appeal from the Circuit Court of the United States for the Northern Division of the Western District of Washington.

Actions by the American Bonding Company of Baltimore, Md., against R. O. Welts and others, against Patrick Halloran and others, and against George A. Plenson and others. Judgments for defendants, and plaintiff appeals.

These appeals were argued and submitted together. Each of the suits was (onunonced in the court below by the appellant as complainant to recover a joint and several judgment against the defendants thereto in a sum exceeding the jurisdictional amount, the complainant being a surety company organized under the laws of the state of Maryland and authorized to do business in the state of Washington, of which latter state the defendants are citizens. In case* No. 1,989 the bill alleges, among other things, that on or about November 4, 1902, one Fred Blnmberg was elected county auditor and ex officio clerk of the board of county commissioners of Skagit county, Wash., and as such executed an official bond in the sum of 810,000, with the complainant as surety, and, having duly qualified, entered upon the discharge of Ihe duties of his office for the term to which he had been elected, commencing January 12, 1903, and ending January 9, 1905; that defendant to ihe suit It. O. Weils was the county treasurer, and the defendants Bessner, Henson, and Henry were the county commissioners of Skagit couniy during Blumberg's said term, and qualified as such officers and gave the official bond required by law; that Blnmberg as such auditor issued a large number of fictitious and fraudulent warrants, a detailed list of which is set out in the bill, made payable to the respective payees therein named, and, having so wrongfully issued such warrants, indorsed the same with the name of the payee therein named in substantially this form, ‘‘John Doc, by Fred Blumberg. Comity Auditor,” and thereupon inesented such warrants to the defendant Welts as such county treasurer, who paid the same, “except that in some instances the warrants were marked ‘presented, but not x)aid for want of money in tbe fund,’ and were thereupon sold hy Blnmberg to innocent third parties, who afterwards xiresented and received payment of said warrants from def(aidants B. O. Welts”; that in so paying the said fraudulent warrants the defendant Welts was guilty of gross negligence, and acted without inquiry or investigation as to the genuineness of the warrants or the authority of Blnmberg to indorse the name of the several payees or to collect the same, and thereby tbe said county of Skagit was defrauded of the amount so paid on the warrants; that the said warrants so paid by the treasurer were, in accordance with the laws of the state of Washington, listed in detail and presented with the said list to the commissioners of the county at each of their quarterly sessions on íhe first Monday of January, April, July, and October by the treasurer, and that it then became the duty of the commissioners to carefully examine and check the said warrants and lists with a view of allowing the treasurer credit for all proper and valid warrants; that the commissioners wholly failed to discharge that: and other statutory duties set out in the bill, “although even the most perfunctory performance of the same would have resulted in a full discovery of Blumberg's fraudulent practices as early as the first quarterly meeting of the commissioners in January, 1903,” at which time a number of fictitious warrants came before them with the treasurer’s detailed list, and as a consequence of that dereliction in duty the auditor was enabled to and (lid continue to issue and forge many other warrants described ill the bill, and that thereby the county lost the amounts paid thereon; that Blumberg was re-elected auditor of Skagit, county for a second term ending in January, 1907, during which he continued his peculations, and that shortly after the expiration of his term of office he committed suicide, whereupon his defalcation was discovered; that thereupon the county of Skagit commenced an action against the complainant as surety, in which action such proceedings were had that on the 10th day of June, 1910, judgment was rendered by the Supreme Court of the state of Washington against the complainant for a large sum of money, including the aggregate amount of the warrants described in the present bill of complaint, and that. Blumberg’s estate being insolvent, the complainant below was compelled to and did discharge the said state judgment by paying the full amount thereof with interest and costs; that in consequence of the alleged breach by the defendants to the present suit-of their official duties, and of the terms of their several official bonds, the county of Skagit had a cause of action against them and each of them, as well as and in addition to the cause of action against Blumherg, and that that county having elected to proceed against Blumberg, and complainant as Blumberg’s surety, having been forced to discharge an obligation for which the defendants were primarily liable, is equitably subrogated to all the rights and remedies of the county against the defendants to the present bill.

The bills in suits Nos. 1,990 and 1,991 proceed upon similar grounds, and the court below having sustained a demurrer to the bill in each case, and the complainant declining to amend, final judgment was entered in each for the defendants, from which judgments the complainant brought the present appeals.