Charles Evans Hughes

“ The obligation of the surety thus enforced in a single action is a legal obligation to the United States for the use and benefit of the several claimants. We do not regard the requirements that 'the claim and judgment of the United States' shall have priority, and that the aggregate recovery shall not exceed the penalty on the bond, as insuperable obstacles to proceeding at law. It is the case of an undertaking for the payment of many claims, not to exceed the specified penalty. ”

“ It is true, of course, that the real party in interest who is entitled to enforce the cause of action may be substituted as plaintiff. See McDonald v. Nebraska, 41 C. C. A. 278, 101 Fed. 171, 178. But the present case is not one of misnomer, or of a nominal plaintiff for whom the real party in interest is substituted, or indeed of any proper substitution. The plaintiff, the Electrical Engineering& Contracting Company, was not a nominal party, nor was the action in any sense brought for the benefit of the Carolina Electrical Company. ”

“ In the present case, the plaintiff in error insists that there was no final settlement within the meaning of the statute prior to the issue of the check for payment to the contractor on September 11, 1912, and that in this view the action was brought too soon.
It was evidently the purpose of the act of 1905 to remedy the defect in the act of 1894 by assuring to the United States adequate opportunity to enforce its demand against the contractor's surety, and priority with respect to such demand. Mankin v. United States, 215 U.S. 533, 538, 54 L. ed. 315, 317, 30 Sup. Ct. Rep. 174 ”