Farnham v. Lenox Motor Car Co.

• Decision Date: 05 March 1918
• Parties: FARNHAM et al. v. LENOX MOTOR CAR CO. SAME v. HOWARD et al.
• Court: United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court

229 Mass. 478

118 N.E. 874

FARNHAM et al.

v.LENOX MOTOR CAR CO.

SAME

v.HOWARD et al.

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, Suffolk.

March 5, 1918.

Report from Superior Court, Suffolk County; Jabez Fox, Judge.

Actions by John T. Farnham and others against the Lenox Motor Car Company, Daniel S. Howard, Jr., and others. On report to the Supreme Judicial Court for determination as to interlocutory orders made by the judge of the superior court denying motions for judgment according to the auditor's report. Orders affirmed.

Lee M. Friedman, Louis B. King, and Swift, Friedman & Atherton, all of Boston, for plaintiffs.

John H. Casey, Frederic J. Muldoon, and George W. Reed, all of Boston, for defendants.

RUGG, C. J.

These are actions at law sounding in contract. The defendants in each action seasonably claimed a trial by jury. Subsequently the cases were referred to an auditor, before whom a full hearing was had. His report was elaborate, covering in detail every issue. No exceptions were taken to rulings made by the auditor. St. 1914, c. 576, § 2. No motion was made to recommit and no objection was made except that questions of law were raised going to the root of the plaintiff's claim in the Howard case. Thereupon the plaintiffs moved in each case for judgment to be entered according to the auditor's report. These motions were founded upon rule 31 of the superior court rules, which, after regulating with some particularity proceedings before auditors, provides that:

‘On the coming in of the auditor's report, either party may move for entry of judgment according to said report; and the court, thereupon, shall order such judgment to be entered, unless, within a time stated, cause appears or is shown to the contrary. If cause appears or is shown the court may hear the parties and frame appropriate issues for the court or jury, upon which the trial shall be had.’

The following ruling was made upon these motions:

‘Upon the hearing of these motions it appeared that the defendants were not content with the findings of the auditor, and insisted upon their right of trial by jury, and thereupon I ruled as matter of law that I had not power to order judgment, but that in the exercise of my discretion I should order judgment in these cases if I had the power.’

This ruling was correct. Article 15 of the Bill of Rights of our Constitution is in these words:

‘In all controversies concerning property, and in all suits between two or more persons, except in cases in which it has heretofore been otherways used and practiced, the parties have a right to a trial by jury; and this method of procedure shall be held sacred, unless, in causes arising on the high seas, and such as relate to mariners' wages, the Legislature shall hereafter find it necessary to alter it.’

It is manifest that the ordinary action of contract is a controversy concerning property, in which trial by jury commonly was had as of right at the time of the adoption of the Constitution. It was not one of those excepted causes in which it had theretofore ‘been otherways used and practiced.’ Stockbridge v. Mixer, 215 Mass. 415, 102 N. E. 646. The case at bar in this respect is distinguishable from Ashley v. Three Justices of the Superior Court, 228 Mass. 63, 73, 116 N. E. 961. It belongs to the class of cases, therefore, where under the Constitution trial by jury must be held sacred and jealously guarded against every encroachment. The power of the superior courts in ample to make rules regulating practice and procedure, expediting the trial of causes and the general conduct of its business, and such rules are to be respected and enforced. R. L. c. 158, § 3; Pratt v. Pratt, 157 Mass. 503, 505, 32 N. E. 747,21 L. R. A. 97;Cram v. Moore, 158 Mass. 276, 33 N. E. 524;Norwood v. Dodge, 215 Mass. 351, 102 N. E. 412. But of course such rules cannot override the Constitution.

The right to trial by jury may be regulated as to its method of claiming and mode of exercise in a large variety of aspects. The history of the changes in trial by jury since the Constitution is traced somewhat in Bothwell v. Boston Elevated Railway, 215 Mass. 467, 472, 473, 102 N. E. 665, L. R. A. 1917F, 167, Ann. Cas. 1914D, 275. The decisions there are reviewed and the statutes summarized. What there is said need not now be repeated. See also Mead v. Cutler, 194 Mass. 277, 80 N. E. 496;Commonwealth v. Gloucester, 110 Mass. 491, 496;Gavett v. Manchester & Lawrence Railroad Co., 16 Gray, 501, 506, 77 Am. Dec. 422. Doubtless the power of regulation of the nonessential attributes of trial by jury has not been exhausted. Statutes, going further in this direction than any of our own, have been upheld in other jurisdictions. Williams v. Gottschalk, 231 Ill. 175, 83 N. E. 141,12 Ann. Cas. 376;Morrison Hotel, etc., Co. v. Kirsner, 245, Ill. 431, 92 N. E. 285,137 Am. St. Rep. 335; Randall v. Kehlor, 60 Me. 37, 11 Am. Rep. 169; Humphrey v. Eakeley, 72 N. J. Law, 424, 60 Atl. 1097,5 Ann. Cas. 929,Jones v. Spear, 21 Vt. 426;Smith v. Western Pacific Railroad Co., 203 N. Y. 499, 96 N. E. 1106,40 L. R. A. (N. S.) 137, Ann. Cas. 1913B, 264. No one of our statutes or decisions touches or impairs in any degree the substance of that right. The essence of that right is that controverted facts shall be decided by the jury. Each party must have on proper demand at least one fair opportunity to present to the jury the evidence which raises a disputed issue of fact.

The rule of court here in question must be interpreted in the light of these established principles. It cannot be presumed that the justices of the superior court in framing this rule intended to deny the right to trial by jury which underlies all our common law. It easily may be construed in harmony with that right. A sufficient ‘cause appears or is shown’ why judgment should not be entered in accordance with the auditor's report as those words are used in the last sentence of the rule, if it is made manifest that a trial by jury has been seasonably claimed by either party and is insisted on by such party, and there is a real issue of fact to be tried. Great preponderance of the apparent weight of testimony will not warrant a denial of trial by jury provided there is seemingly enough to require a submission of the case to the jury under the familiar principles.

By giving to the rule the interpretation urged by the defendants, the constitutional right of trial by jury would be denied by the portion of the rule here assailed. Instead of preserving trial by jury as a fixed right, it would be made to depend upon the discretion of the judge. A rule of that tenor would not recognize or hold sacred an absolute right.

Doubtless it would be within the province of the court under the rule to require the parties to state the substance of the evidence which each expected to offer at the trial, and to ascertain whether there was upon such statement any disputed question of fact or any fact to be found either directly or by inference; and also in appropriate instances to frame questions answers to which would settle such disputed fact or facts. Of course great care must be exercised in the use of this power and the fullest opportunity given to parties to make a complete statement with the knowledge that it is to be made the basis of a ruling of law upon the rights of the parties. But there is no fundamental objection to a ruling of law made upon a fair statement of what the evidence is expected to be. In reason there is no distinction between a rule of this nature and the well-recognized practice of this court in appropriate cases of permitting a ruling to be made on the footing that on the opening statement of counsel to the jury no case is shown in law. Hey v. Prime, 197 Mass. 474, 84 N. E. 141,17 L. R. A. (N. S.) 570;Lee v. Blodget, 214 Mass. 374, 377, 102 N. E. 67;Stevens v. Nichols, 155 Mass. 472, 29 N. E. 1150,15 L. R. A. 459. This rule prevails generally. Oscanyan v. Arms Co., 103 U. S. 261, 263, 264, 26 L. Ed. 539;Butler v. National Home for Soldiers, 144 U. S. 64, 12 Sup. Ct. 581, 36 L. Ed. 346;Carr v. Delaware, Lackawanna & Western Railroad, 78 N. J. Law, 692, 75 Atl. 928;Jordan v. Reed, 77 N. J. Law, 584, 71 Atl. 280;Barto v. Detroit Iron & Steel Co., 155 Mich. 94, 118 N. W. 738;Hoffman House v. Foote, 172 N. Y. 348, 65 N. E. 169;Hutton v. Stewart, 90 Kan. 602, 135 Pac. 681;Cornell v. Morrison, 87 Ohio St. 215, 100 N. E. 817;St. Paul Motor Vehicle Co. v. Johnston, 127 Minn. 443, 149 N. W....