A. Doykos & T. Pappas, Inc. v. Leventhal

• Decision Date: 04 April 1935
• Parties: A. DOYKOS & T. PAPPAS, Inc., v. LEVENTHAL et al.
• Court: United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court

290 Mass. 375

195 N.E. 348

A. DOYKOS & T. PAPPAS, Inc., v. LEVENTHAL et al.

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, Suffolk.

April 4, 1935

Suit in equity by A. Doykos & T. Pappas, Inc., against Harold A Leventhal and others. From a final decree entered after hearing on the merits and order for a decree, defendants appeal.

Affirmed.

Appeal from Superior Court, Suffolk County; Whiting, Judge.

J. J Fox, Jr., of Lawrence, and H. A. Leventhal, of Boston, for appellants.

RUGG Chief Justice.

This is an appeal from a final decree in a suit in equity. In substance and effect the suit is for an accounting against the defendants as liquidating agents of the plaintiff. The trial judge entered an order for a decree specifying the amounts due from the defendants to the plaintiff. No evidence is reported. His findings must be accepted as final. The final decree was in conformity to these findings. Manifestly it is within the scope of the bill.

An incomplete and inaccurate accounting was rendered by the defendants to the plaintiff on February 16, 1934. It clearly appears that that accounting was rendered after demands by the plaintiff. Interest was rightly allowable from the date of that accounting rather than from the date of the filing of the bill. There is no merit in the appeal on these aspects of the case.

The defendants contend that a mistake of forty-two cents was made in reckoning interest in making up the final decree. As matter of arithmetical calculation, this contention seems to be sound. It appears upon the face of the final decree. If any error was made, it was a mistake in computation which the defendants might have had corrected if seasonable application had been made therefor even after the entry of the final decree. Thompson v. Goulding, 5 Allen, 81, 82; Kingsley v. City of Fall River, 280 Mass. 395, 398 182 N.E. 841, and cases cited. Prenguber v. Agostini (Mass.) 193 N.E. 743. Moreover, the power of the superior court to correct clerical errors in its records is ample. Karrick v. Wetmore, 210 Mass. 578, 579, 97 N.E. 92; Webb v. Cohen, 280 Mass. 292, 293, 182 N.E. 337; Hopkinton v. B. F. Sturtevant Co., 285 Mass. 272, 275, 189 N.E. 107; Bryer v. American Surety Co., 285 Mass. 336, 338, 189 N.E. 109. In these circumstances, it was a vain and vexatious procedure to put the plaintiff and the public to the expense of an appeal to this court.

This is a proper case for the application of the maxim that the law does not deal with trivialities when no substantial right is involved. De minimus non curat lex. Adams v Frothingham, 3 Mass. 352, 363,3 Am.Dec. 151; Brewer v. Inhabitants of Tyringham, 12 Pick. 547, 549; Workman v. Worcester, 118 Mass. 168; Sears v. City of Worcester, 180 Mass. 288, 62 N.E. 269; Slaughter v. First National Bank of Montgomery, 109 Ala. 157, 161, 19 So. 430; City of Chicago v. Wilshire, 238 Ill. 317, 319, 87 N.E. 383; London & Northwest American Mortgage Co. v. Gibson, 77 Minn. 394, 398, 399, 80 N.W. 205, 777; Crook v. Rindskopf, 105 N.Y. 476, 484,12 N.E. 174; McKone v. Metropolitan Life Ins. Co., 131 Wis. 243, 249, 110 N.W. 472. The case at bar is quite distinguishable from Boyden v. Moore, 5 Mass. 365, 371, 372; Pickett v. Breckenridge, 22 Pick. 297,33 Am.Dec. 745; Chenery v. Stevens, 97 Mass. 77, 83, and shaheen v. Hershfield, 247 Mass. 543, 142 N.E. 761, where, although the amount involved was small, there was a substantial...