Berman v. Coakley
| Decision Date | 13 October 1926 |
| Parties | MYER BERMAN v. DANIEL H. COAKLEY. |
| Court | United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court |
December 3, 4 1925.
Present: RUGG, C.
J., BRALEY, CROSBY & SANDERSON, JJ.
Equity Pleading and Practice, Appeal, Findings of fact by trial judge. Time. Evidence, Presumptions and burden of proof. Conspiracy. Attorney at Law.
A statement of findings of fact by a judge who heard a suit in equity has the same effect as a "report [of] the material facts" found by him, filed after a request by an appealing party pursuant to G.L.c. 214,
Section 23, and after having filed such a statement, the judge is not required to comply with a request made in writing within four days for findings of facts specified in the request.
A Lord's day is excluded in the computing of the four days within which a request for findings of fact may be made under G.L.c. 214 Section 23.
Upon an appeal from a final decree entered after a hearing of a suit in equity, where the evidence was given orally and was taken under Equity
Rule 35 (1905), G.L.c. 214, Section 24, and the judge filed a statement of facts found by him, the evidence must be examined and the case decided according to the judgment of this court as to the facts, giving due weight to the findings of the judge; and his decision will not be overturned unless plainly wrong.
A suit in equity was brought by a client against one who formerly was his attorney for an accounting as to sums of money paid by the plaintiff to the defendant as his attorney because, as alleged, the defendant conspired with another attorney to cheat and defraud the plaintiff by suppressing or feigning to suppress a charge made, as a part of the conspiracy, against the plaintiff to the district attorney by a husband to the effect that the plaintiff as proprietor of a hotel had suffered the wife of the complaining husband to resort to the plaintiff's hotel for purposes of unlawful sexual intercourse. The suit was heard by a judge upon oral testimony reported under Equity Rule 35 (1905), G.L.c.
214, Section 24. Upon all other facts than the payment of the money by the plaintiff to the defendant as the plaintiff's attorney, the testimony was in conflict. The judge found that the testimony of two witnesses, one of them the plaintiff, upon which the plaintiff's case in the main was founded, was "absolutely unreliable." There were inconsistencies in the evidence for the defendant and improbabilities in his testimony. A final decree was entered dismissing the bill. The plaintiff appealed. Held, that
(1) The printed record did not quite warrant a ruling that the material findings by the trial judge were plainly wrong so far as they depended upon the uncorroborated evidence of the defendant;
(2) The inconsistencies in the defendant's evidence and improbabilities in his testimony did not require as a matter of law an overturning of the judge's findings;
(3) The findings by the judge could not be pronounced plainly wrong as a matter of law.
The defendant in the suit above described was one of those found to have participated in the conspiracies which were the basis of the proceedings and judgments in Attorney General v. Tufts, 239 Mass. 458 , and Attorney
General v. Pelletier, 240 Mass. 264 , and it was stated that nothing stated in this decision in any degree impaired the force of those judgments.
A denial of a petition for a rehearing of the suit above described by reason of alleged newly discovered evidence was held not to have shown reversible error as a matter of law.
BILL IN EQUITY, filed in the Supreme Judicial Court on March 6, 1922, against one who formerly had been employed as an attorney at law by the plaintiff, seeking an accounting and a repayment of sums alleged to have been procured extortionately by the defendant from the plaintiff for the purpose of preventing indictments.
The suit previously was before this court when a demurrer to the bill was ordered overruled by a decision reported in 243 Mass. 348 .
The suit then was transferred to the Superior Court for hearing and there was heard by Wait, J., then a judge of that court. Upon his appointment as a member of this court on December 19, 1923, the suit was returned to this court and, on January 8, 1924, the single justice filed the statement of findings described in the opinion. A petition for rehearing was filed by the plaintiff on May 26, 1924, an affidavit in support thereof was filed on October 30, 1924, and a counter affidavit by the defendant was filed on November 13, 1924. An interlocutory decree denying the petition was entered on December 19, 1924, and a final decree dismissing the bill was entered on February 7, 1925.
On February 12, 1925, the plaintiff filed the "Request for Report of Material Facts" described in the opinion. The plaintiff appealed from the decree and from the judge's order upon the request for a report of material facts.
W.H. Garland, for the plaintiff. T.H. Mahoney, (P.J. Delaney with him,) for the defendant.
This is a suit in equity by a client against one who formerly was his attorney for an accounting as to sums of money paid by the plaintiff to the defendant as his attorney because, as alleged, the latter conspired with one Corcoran to cheat and defraud the plaintiff by suppressing or feigning to suppress a charge made, as a part of the conspiracy, against the plaintiff to the district attorney by a husband to the effect that the plaintiff as proprietor of a hotel had suffered the wife of the complaining husband to resort to the plaintiff's hotel for purposes of unlawful sexual intercourse. The allegations of the bill are set out more at length in 243 Mass. 348 , when the case was here upon the bill and demurrer. It there was held that the bill set out a cause of action in equity and the demurrer was overruled. The case then came on for trial on the merits. The single justice made in writing findings of facts. The plaintiff's appeal from a final decree dismissing the bill brings the case here.
The findings of the judge were filed voluntarily in accordance with the practice approved in Cohen v. Nagle, 190 Mass. 4 , 5. They have the same effect as a "report [of] the material facts found by" the trial judge pursuant to G.L.c. 214, Section 23. Howe v. Howe, 199 Mass. 598 , 601. Taylor v. Jones, 242 Mass. 210 , 216.
The plaintiff, however, requested a finding of material facts in accordance with G.L.c. 214, Section 23. This request included subsidiary requests for findings of certain specified facts. This request was filed within four days after the entry of the final decree, as required by said Section 23, because, although five calendar days had elapsed, one of these days was a Sunday, which is excluded in the computation of a time less than a week. Stevenson v. Donnelly, 221 Mass. 161 , 163. In response to this request the single justice referred to his findings previously filed as a report of the material facts and declined to make the findings specified in the request. In this there was no error. Such a report "is in the nature of an extension of the record in the form of a statement in writing of that which was in the mind of the judge when his decision was made." Worcester v. Lakeside Manuf. Co. 174 Mass. 299 , 300. This is not a report of the evidence. It merely states certain facts material in the thought of the judge and commonly also his decision. The only question presented on this aspect of the case is whether the specific facts stated can stand, the evidence being reported, and are inconsistent with the general conclusion reached. Cleveland v. Hampden Savings Bank, 182 Mass. 110 . The report contemplated by the statute being of this nature, plainly the trial court cannot be required to make findings of specified facts. While there is no impropriety in appropriate instances in making requests for such findings, Matthews v. Dinner, 237 Mass. 153 , a trial judge in conformity to the statute reports only facts material to the decision in conditions like the present.
The case is before us on an appeal from a final decree upon the findings of material facts made by the single justice with a full report of all the evidence. The evidence was principally the testimony of numerous witnesses given orally in the presence of the single justice. The duty of this court in these circumstances is settled and has been stated frequently. The evidence must be examined and the case decided according to the judgment of this court as to the facts, giving due weight to the findings of the judge; but his decision will not be overturned unless plainly wrong. The presumption in favor of the correctness of the decree appealed from and of the findings of fact made is peculiarly strong, because "the judge who hears the testimony from the mouths of the witnesses . . . has better means of weighing the credibility of their conflicting statements than the full court can possibly have upon the printed record of their testimony." Reed v. Reed, 114 Mass. 372 , 373. Lindsey v. Bird, 193 Mass. 200 , 201. Sawyer v Clark, 214 Mass. 124 , 126....
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