Chateaugay Ore & Iron Company/Opinion of the Court

by Samuel Blatchford

United States Supreme Court

128 U.S. 544

Chateaugay Ore & Iron Company

We are of opinion that the writ of mandamus must issue. By rules 67 and 69 of the circuit court for the Southern district of New York, which took effect on the first Monday of August, 1838, it is provided that, when exceptions to the opinion of the court are taken by either party on the trial of a cause, he shall not be required to prepare his bill of exceptions at the trial, but shall merely reduce the exceptions to writing, or the court will, on request, note the point, and the bill of exceptions shall afterwards be drawn up, amended, and settled, under the following regulations: The bill of exceptions shall be prepared, and a copy thereof served upon the opposite party, before judgment is rendered on the verdict. The opposite party may, within four days after such service, propose amendments to the bill, and serve a copy upon the party who prepared it. If the parties cannot agree in regard to the amendments, then, within four days after such service of a copy of the amendments, either party may give to the other notice to appear within a convenient time, and not more than four days after service of such notice, before the judge who tried the cause, to have the bill and amendments settled. The judge shall thereupon correct and settle the same as he shall deem to consist with the truth of the facts; but, if the parties shall omit, within the several times above limited, unless the same shall be enlarged by a judge, the one to propose amendments, and the other to notify an appearance before the judge, they shall respectively be deemed, the former to have agreed to the bill as prepared, and the latter to have agreed to the amendments as proposed; and if the party omit to make a bill within the time above limited, unless the same shall be enlarged as aforesaid, he shall be deemed to have waived his right thereto. A corresponding practice prevails in the supreme court of the state of New York, by its rules, with variations as to time. Under those rules, a case, or a case and exceptions, or a case containing exceptions, on a trial before a jury, is to be made, and a copy thereof served on the opposite party, within 10 days after the trial. The party served may, within 10 days thereafter, propose amendments thereto, and serve a copy on the party proposing the case or exceptions, who may within 4 days thereafter serve the opposite party with a notice that the case or exceptions, with the proposed amendments, will be submitted at a time and place to be specified in the notice, not less than 4 nor more than 20 days after service of such notice, to the justice before whom the cause was tried, for settlement. It is apparent that both parties in this case acted upon the view that the rule of practice of the supreme court of the state applied to the case; because the plaintiff, instead of serving on the defendant his proposed amendments to the bill within 4 days after the 3d March, as required by the rule of the circuit court, waited 10 days, under the rule of the supreme court of the state, and then, on the 13th of March, obtained a stipulation from the defendant giving 10 days' additional time to prepare and serve amendments. It may be that the defendant, in serving, on the 27th of March, a notice of settlement of 14 days, for the 10th of April, on the plaintiff, intended to comply, as it in fact did comply, with the requirement of the rule of the state court that such notice should be a notice of not less than 4 nor more than 20 days; yet it also sufficiently complied with rule 67 of the circuit court, which required a notice of not more than 4 days, because a notice of 4 days, served on the 27th of March, would have been for the 31st of March, and Judge SHIPMAN was not then within the Southern district of New York, so as to be able to perform any judicial act there, nor did he come there, so as to be able to do so, until the 2d of April, 1888. Under these circumstances, the notice for the 10th of April was a reasonable compliance with the rule of the circuit court.

We are of opinion that the practice and rules of the state court do not apply to proceedings in the circuit court taken for the purpose of reviewing in this court a judgment of the circuit court, and that such rules and practice, embracing the preparation, perfecting, settling, and signing of a bill of exceptions, are not within the 'practice, pleadings, and forms and modes of proceeding' in the circuit court, which are required, by section 914 of the Revised Statutes, to conform, 'as near as may be,' to the 'practice, pleadings, and forms and modes of proceeding existing at the time in like causes in the courts of record of the state' within which the circuit court is held; 'any rule of court to the contrary notwithstanding.' This court has had occasion several times to construe section 914. In Nudd v. Burrows, 91 U.S. 426, a state statute required a judge to instruct a jury only as to the law of a case; and provided that the written instructions of the court should be taken by the jury in their retirement, and returned with the verdict, and that papers read in evidence might be carried from the bar by the jury. The court charged the jury upon the facts, and refused to permit them to take to their room the written instructions given by the court or papers read in evidence. This court held that this was not error, because the personal conduct and administration of the judge in the discharge of his separate functions was not practice, or pleading, or a form or mode of proceeding, within the meaning of those terms in the act of congress. In Railroad Co. v. Horst, 93 U.S. 291, a state statute prescribed that the judge should require the jury to answer special interrogatories in addition to finding a general verdict. This court held that that provision did not apply to the courts of the United States; and that the act of congress did not apply to a motion for a new trial, nor affect the power of the circuit court to grant or refuse a new trial in its discretion. This last point was again so ruled in Newcomb v. Wood, 97 U.S. 581. In harmony with the foregoing decisions, we are of opinion that section 914 does not extend to the means of enforcing or revising a decision once made by the circuit court. Section 914 does not extend to proceedings to enforce a judgment, because by section 916 special provisions are made, as to a remedy by execution or otherwise, to reach the property of a judgment debtor, by borrowing from the laws of the state only those remedies then already existing, or which should thereafter be adopted by general rules of the circuit court. Lamaster v. Keeler, 123 U.S. 376, 8 Sup. Ct. Rep. 197. The object of section 914 was to assimilate the form and manner in which the parties should present their claims and defense, in the preparation for the trial of suits in the federal courts, to those prevailing in the courts of the state. As we have seen, it does not include state statutes requiring instructions to the jury to be reduced to writing, or those which permit such instructions, and certain papers read in evidence, to be taken by the jury when they retire, or those which require the jury to be directed, if they return a general verdict, to find specially upon particular questions of fact involved in the issues; and as it does not apply to a motion for a new trial, nor affect the power of the circuit court to grant or refuse a new trial at its discretion, so it does not cover any other means of enforcing or revising a decision once made by the circuit court. The manner or the time of taking proceedings as a foundation for the removal of a case by a writ of error from one federal court to another is a matter to be regulated exclusively by acts of congress, or, when they are silent, by methods derived from the common law, from ancient English statutes, or from the rules and practice of the courts of the United States. The only regulation made by congress as to bills of exceptions is that contained in section 953 of the Revised Statutes, which provides that they shall be sufficiently authenticated by the signature of the presiding judge, without any seal. These views were adopted by the circuit court for the Southern district of New York in Whalen v. Sheridan, 18 Blatchf. 324, 10 Fed. Rep. 661, and by the circuit court for the district of Massachusetts in U.S. v. Train, 12 Fed. Rep. 852.

In the present case, the defendant prepared and served its bill of exceptions within the 40 days from January 25th. The expression 'prepare and serve,' in the order allowing the 40 days, clearly meant, in view of rules 67 and 69 of the circuit court, that the proposed bill was to be prepared and served on the opposite party within the 40 days, so that he might propose amendments to it within the time prescribed by the rules. It was so prepared and served within the 40 days. It was retained by the plaintiff for 10 days after its service. He then obtained, by stipulation, from the defendant, 10 days' more time to prepare and serve amendments. The proposed amendments were served on the tenth day, and the notice of settlement was accepted, written admission of its service was given, and it was retained. Under these and the other circumstances above detailed, we think the defendant was entirely regular in its practice, and that the plaintiff was estopped from raising the objection which he made before Judge SHIPMAN. On the facts of the present case, the decision in Muller v. Ehlers, 91 U.S. 249, has no application. In that case, on a trial by the court, without a jury, of an action at law, there was a general finding for the plaintiff, and a motion for a new trial. The motion was continued until the next term, when it was overruled, and judgment was entered on the finding. At the latter term, a writ of error, returnable to this court, was sued out, and the term was adjourned without any bill of exceptions having been signed or allowed, or any time having been given, either by consent of the parties or by order of the court, to prepare one. At the next ensuing term, and after the returnday of the writ of error, a bill of exceptions was signed and filed by order of the court as of the day the finding was made, and it did not appear that that had been done with the consent or knowledge of the plaintiff. On these facts, this court held that the order of the court below, directing the filing of the bill of exceptions as of the date of the finding, was a nullity, on the ground that the parties had, in due course of proceeding, both in law and in fact, been dismissed from the court. That decision has no application to the present case, because the rights of the defendant were saved by the express order of the court, made during the term, and by a sufficient compliance on the part of the defendant with the rules of the circuit court, and by what must be held to have been the consent of the plaintiff.

In this view of the case, the question whether the term at which the verdict was rendered expired on the 25th of February, being the Saturday next preceding the last Monday of February, or on the 31st of March, being the Saturday next preceding the first Monday of April, is immaterial. The rules of the circuit court clearly contemplate proceedings to perfect a bill of exceptions within the times limited by those rules, without reference to the expiration of a term. By section 658 of the Revised Statutes, terms of the circuit court are appointed to be held in the Southern District of New York on the first Monday in April and the third Monday in October, 'and for the trial of criminal causes and suits in equity' on the last Monday in February. The defendant contends that the October term terminated at the beginning of the February term, and the plaintiff contends that the October term terminated at the beginning of the April term. We do not find it necessary to decide this question. A writ of mandamus may properly be issued by this court to compel the judge of an inferior court to settle and sign a bill of exceptions. Ex parte Crane, 5 Pet. 190. Such a writ does not undertake to control the discretion of the judge as to how he shall frame the bill of exceptions, or as to how he shall decide any point arising on its settlement; but it only compels him to settle and sign it in some form. The writ will issue in the terms of the prayer of the petition, commanding the judge to settle the bill of exceptions tendered by the defendant, according to the truth of the matters which took place before him on the trial of the aforesaid action, and, when so settled, to sign it as of the 10th day of April, 1888, that being the day when the proposed bill and proposed amendments were submitted to him for settlement.

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