Atlantic Mar. Co. v. City of Gloucester

• Citation: 117 N.E. 924,228 Mass. 519
• Parties: ATLANTIC MARITIME CO. v. CITY OF GLOUCESTER.
• Decision Date: 04 December 1917
• Court: United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts

228 Mass. 519

117 N.E. 924

ATLANTIC MARITIME CO.

v.CITY OF GLOUCESTER.

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, Essex.

Dec. 4, 1917.

Report from Superior Court, Essex County; Frederick Lawton, Judge.

Complaint by the Atlantic Maritime Company against the City of Gloucester. On report to the Supreme Judicial Court. Report discharged, and case ordered to stand for further hearing in accordance with the opinion.

Thos. M. Vinson and Chas. D. Lanning, both of Boston, for petitioner.

M. Francis Buckley, of Gloucester, for respondent.

RUGG, C. J.

This is a complaint to the superior court by way of appeal under St. 1909, c. 490, part 1, § 77, from a refusal by the assessors of the city of Gloucester to abate a portion of the taxes assessed upon the complainant for the year 1911. The case was sent to a commissioner under section 79, who made a report of certain facts. The facts thus found were presented by stipulation of the parties to a judge of the superior court as an ‘agreed statement of facts submitted as evidence.’ He thereupon signed a report in these words:

‘By agreement of the parties the case is ordered to be reported to the Supreme Judicial Court without decision of the case by the court, in accordance with the provisions of Acts of 1917, chapter 345.’

The effect of that statute, which is printed in the margin, ¹ simply is to add a final sentence to section 105 of R. L. c. 173, as amended by St. 1910, c. 555, § 5. Under the law as it stood before this latest amendment a superior court judge could report to the full court questions of law arising in an action at law in two classes of cases only, (1) after a verdict by a jury, a power conferred first by St. 1859, c. 196, § 32, whereby the superior court was established and (2) after a finding of the facts made by the judge, a power conferred first by St. 1878, c. 231, § 1. These two classes cover the vast majority of cases. No power was conferred by the statutes enacted before 1917 to report a case where there was an agreement by parties as to all the material facts. Although instances may be found where such cases have come before this court by report ( Berton v. Atlas Assurance Co., 203 Mass. 134, 89 N. E. 244) and have been considered sub silentio without any question of practice being raised, almost without exception they have come by appeal from judgment ordered by the superior court which necessarily involved a determination of all questions of law as well as of fact in issue. See, for example, Cunningham v. Conn. Fire Ins. Co., 200 Mass. 333, 86 N. E. 787, and cases cited; Harmon v. Sweet, 221 Mass. 587, 598, 109 N. E. 942, and cases cited. Manifestly the purpose of St. 1917, c. 345, was to confer upon the superior court authority to report a case when all the material facts were agreed and submitted to the court. It added to the two classes of cases above stated the power to report a third class of cases to the full court, namely, when all the material facts are agreed.

The word ‘decision’ in the grant of power in the instant statute to report ‘without making any decision thereon’ is confined to decision of the issue of law raised at the trial. It put facts agreed upon the same footing as a verdict by the jury or a finding by the judge, so far as concerns power to report a case. The statute does not mean that, when a finding of fact must be made in order to present a pure question of law as decisive of the case, the judge of the superior court can omit to make that finding and merely pass the case on to be decided both as to fact as well as law by this court. Abandonment of the judicial function by the trial court was not intended by the statute. If material facts, whether primary or ultimate, express or inferential, are omitted from facts agreed and submitted, it becomes the duty of the superior court judge to find those facts before he can report under the statute. Even though the ultimate facts may rest upon inferences, the duty of determining what inferences are the most rational, and of drawing such inferences from the other facts agreed, rests on the superior court judge before he can report the case. If such inferences need to be drawn in order to reach the ultimate essential facts, then there has not been ‘agreement as to all the material facts' by the parties within the meaning of those words in the statute.

The duty of weighing evidence and of finding facts in the first instance in an action at law is not an appropriate function of a court of last resort. The underlying principle of our judicial system is that the full bench of the Supreme Judicial Court in actions at law can consider and decide only questions of law. It is not designed that it should decide questions of fact. The present statute does not undertake to disturb that underlying principle. It was decided in Churchill v. Palmer, 115 Mass. 310, 313, that:

‘The authority given by statute to the superior court to make reports to this court extends only to questions of law.’

This statement was quoted with approval in Electric Welding Co. v. Prince, 200 Mass. 386, 392, 86 N. E. 947, 949 (128 Am. St. Rep. 434), where it was said further that:

‘Questions of discretion or questions of fact of any other kind cannot be carried to the full court by report or by exception or appeal.’

In substance the same principle has been applied in many other cases, most of which decided up to that time were quoted in Smith v. Lincoln, 198 Mass. 388, 392, 84 N. E. 498, and need not here be repeated. Subsequent decisions, where the principle has been declared, are Com. v. National Contracting Co., 201 Mass. 248, 87 N. E. 590;Scanlon v. Carey, 207 Mass. 285, 93 N. E. 697;Boucher v. Salem Rebuilding Commission, 225 Mass. 18, 113 N. E. 575; Salisbury Beach Associates v. Assessors of Salisbury, 225 Mass. 399, 114 N. E. 675;Mansfield v. Secretary of the Commonwealth, 228 Mass. 262, 117 N. E. 311. Nothing contrary to this established principle can be supposed to have been in the mind of the court in Williams v. Roxbury, 12 Gray, 21, decided before the superior court was established.

A statement of agreed facts submitted as evidence is a recognized method of presenting a case to a court. It may cover the whole or a part of the facts essential to reach a conclusion, or to raise a question of law. When a case is submitted in this way, St. 1913, c. 716, has no application because, when facts are submitted as evidence, they are merely evidence and stand on the same general footing and fall within the same general classification as any other kind of evidence submitted to a jury or to a judge sitting without a jury, in that there must be a further finding of the ultimate fact or facts essential for the determination of the case (unless those ultimate facts also are agreed) by the tribunal charged with finding the facts. Frati v. Jannini, 226 Mass. 430, 115 N. E. 746.

It appears from an examination of the record that the decisive question in controversy between the parties in the case at bar was whether certain fishing and other vessels belonging to the complainant had such situs in Gloucester as to become there the subject of local taxation, the complainant being a corporation organized under the laws of the state of Maine and having its home office at Kittery in that state, and all the vessels in question being enrolled or registered under the federal statutes in the office of the collector of the port of Boston. The situs of those vessels was mainly a question of fact. Situs, which means the place where a thing is, as applied to an object having a physical substance, is ordinarily a fact. It was at least a mixed question of law and fact. It is similar to the question of domicile, which usually is a question of fact. Perkins v. Davis, 109 Mass. 239;Palmer v. Hampden, 182 Mass. 511, 65 N. E. 817;Olivieri v. Atkinson, 168 Mass. 28, 46 N. E. 422. The submission of a case upon agreed facts to be considered as evidence is not necessarily equivalent to the submission of a case upon an agreement as to all the material facts. The ‘agreed statement of facts submitted as evidence’ in the case at bar does not contain a stipulation as to the situs of the vessels. Therefore it did not cover the whole filed necessary to be covered before questions of law alone would arise on the record. It became the duty of the judge, before he rightly could report the case under the present statute, to make a finding of fact as to the situs for taxation purposes of the vessels of the complainant before the question of law would be presented which he could report under the statute for the determination of this court. It follows that the report must be discharged and the case stand for further hearing in the superior court. De Veer v. Pierson, 222 Mass. 167, 175, 110 N. E. 154.

It is, however, apparent that unless all the evidence stated in the record warrants a finding that the vessels were physically situated in Gloucester in such sense as there to be subject to taxation, the plaintiff must prevail as matter or law. The parties have agreed upon all the facts which they desire to submit to the court. The hearing and ultimate decision must be made upon these facts with the rational inferences of which they are susceptible. If as matter of law upon these facts and the legitimate inferences flowing therefrom, but one conclusion can be reached, it is appropriate that statement to that effect be made now for the guidance of the superior court upon its further hearing. See Hetherington & Sons, Ltd., v. William Firth Co., 212 Mass. 257-260, 98 N. E. 797. Considering the case in this aspect, or even regarding it as a case stated under the strict rules applicable to that method of presenting a question of law (see Frati v. Jannini, 226 Mass. 430, 432, 115 N. E. 746;Cunningham v. Conn. Ins. Co., 200 Mass. 333, 86 N. E. 787), the plaintiff is entitled to recover. Since we are of opinion that as matter of law there is not sufficient...