Rule 85.24.Who may Sue on Bond.

Several bonds under Rule 85 are made payable to the State of Missouri instead of directly to a private party — the claimant’s bond under Rule 85.08 and the nonowner’s bond under Rule 85.10 both run in that form. When one of those bonds is breached, the injured person still needs a way to enforce it, even though the State, not that person, is technically the payee. Rule 85.24 supplies that mechanism.

Under this rule, any person injured by a breach of the bond’s conditions can bring an action on the bond, and that action proceeds in the name of the State of Missouri, at the instance of the injured person. In other words, the State’s name heads the case, but it is the injured person — whether the property owner harmed by a wrongful attachment, a sheriff owed indemnity, or someone else covered by the bond’s conditions — who drives the litigation and stands to recover.

This rule ties directly back to the bond conditions set out in Rule 85.08, which cover refunding money not justly due, paying damages and costs to the owner, garnishees, or interpleaders, and paying damages and costs owed to a sheriff or other officer. Rule 85.24 is what turns those promises into an enforceable claim when a bond given under Rule 85 and payable to the State is breached.