Casco Bank & Trust Co. v. Rush
| Decision Date | 25 November 1975 |
| Citation | 348 A.2d 239 |
| Parties | CASCO BANK & TRUST COMPANY v. Roger M. RUSH and Joyce B. Rush. |
| Court | Maine Supreme Court |
Thompson, Willard & McNaboe by U. Charles Remmel, II, Portland, for plaintiff.
Roger M. Rush, pro se.
Before DUFRESNE, C. J., and POMEROY, WERNICK, ARCHIBALD and DELAHANTY, JJ.
Plaintiff Casco Bank & Trust Company has appealed to this Court from a judgment of the Superior Court which reversed a judgment of the Ninth District Court, Division of Southern Cumberland and remanded the case to said District Court for further proceedings.
We sustain the appeal.
Plaintiff initiated action against defendants Roger M. Rush and Joyce B. Rush in the Ninth District Court to recover damages for breach of contract. The further proceedings in the District Court produced a judgment entered in favor of the plaintiff in the amount of.$7,105.48.
The Justice presiding in the Superior Court, although observing that it was not entirely clear whether
'a trial on the merits of . . . a hearing on the Plaintiff's Motion for Summary Judgment . . .'
had produced the District Court judgment for plaintiff, nevertheless concluded that the 'true import' of the record was that the District Court judgment resulted from the granting of plaintiff's Motion for Summary Judgment.
In reversing and remanding the case to the District Court for further proceedings, the Superior Court Justice made the following statements of fact.
On the basis of this approach to the record before him, the Superior Court Justice concluded:
'. . . (T)his court is at a loss to understand how a complaint which purports to be based upon a contract which . . . is alleged by purporting to attach copies of the contract as exhibits to the complaint can be considered sufficient when the exhibits are not attached to the complaint and the terms of the contract are never set forth in any fashion, summary or otherwise. . . . it seems completely inappropriate to grant a (m)otion for (s)ummary (j) udgment based upon an insufficient complaint.'
In its appeal to this Court plaintiff bank maintains that the Superior Court Justice unexplainedly overlooked portions of the record in fact before the Superior Court and thus mistakenly believed that Exhibits 'A' and 'B' had not been attached to the complaint.
The total record now before us indicates likelihood of some accidental oversight in the Superior Court, if not by the Superior Court Justice, perhaps in the handling of papers in the office of the Clerk of the Superior Court. In deciding the instant appeal, however, we find it unnecessary to concern ourselves with questions relating to identification of the content of the record which was in existence in fact in the Superior Court or whether, indeed, we may properly go behind the Superior Court Justice's statements of fact as to the record which was before him.
Dealing with the decision of the Superior Court Justice on its own factual terms, that Exhibits 'A' and 'B' had never been attached to the complaint, we conclude that the Justice erred in reversing the summary judgment in favor of plaintiff and ordering a remand to the District Court on the ground that
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