La Forest v. Wm. L. Blake Co.

• Decision Date: 13 May 1905
• Parties: LA FOREST v. WM. L. BLAKE CO.
• Court: Maine Supreme Court

60 A. 899

100 Me. 218

LA FOREST

v. WM. L. BLAKE CO.

Supreme Judicial Court of Maine.

May 13, 1905.

Exceptions from Supreme Judicial Court Cumberland County, in Equity.

Action by Fred La Forest against the Wm. L. Blake Company. Both parties excepted to the master's report. Exceptions overruled.

Argued before WISWELL, C. J., and EMERY, WHITEHOUSE, STROUT, SAVAGE, and POWERS, JJ.

Peter C. Keagan and Drummond & Druinmond, for plaintiff. Symonds, Snow, Cook & Hutchinson and Albert S. Woodman, for defendant.

STROUT, J. April 17, 1901, plaintiff conveyed in mortgage to the defendant certain land in St. John Plantation, on which there was a mill with machinery for the sawing of logs and shingles. The condition was for the payment of "the amount of the indebtedness now owing by said grantor to said grantee, to wit, the sum of fourteen hundred and forty-six dollars and forty cents, in manner following, namely, five hundred dollars upon demand, and nine hundred and forty-six dollars and forty cents upon August 1, 1901, with interest at the rate of six per cent. per annum," and also to pay all future indebtedness, and a provision as to insurance. Plaintiff failed to perform the condition of the mortgage, and on the 28th day of May, 1902, defendant took possession of the mortgaged premises for the purpose of foreclosure, and has ever since retained such possession. October 16, 1902, plaintiff demanded an account of the defendant of the amount due on the mortgage, and of the rents and profits. October 21, 1902, defendant rendered to plaintiff an account, which plaintiff claimed was not a true account. Thereupon he brought this bill in equity to redeem. After answer filed, a master was appointed, to hear the parties and determine the amount due upon the mortgage, after deducting the rents and profits, if any. The master heard the parties and their evidence, and made his report to the court that there was due under the mortgage on October 21, 1902, the date when defendant rendered its account to plaintiff, $3.008.01—a less sum than that claimed by defendant in its account rendered to the plaintiff—and that on May 5, 1904, the date of the master's report the amount due was $4,304.73. Both parties except to the master's report.

A hearing was had before a single justice "upon exceptions of both the plaintiff and defendant to the master's report," and thereupon, without any ruling or decision by the sitting justice, it was reported to the law court "for decision upon said exceptions'; stipulating that "all further issues of law and fact necessary for a final decision of this cause" be before a single justice, whose decision "shall be accepted as final." This was irregular. Reports are intended to take up the whole case, for the court to make final disposition. It should not come up by installments. Here nothing is reported except such evidence as bears upon the acceptance or rejection of the master's report. All we are authorized to do is to sustain or overrule the exceptions. Whether the bill can be maintained or not, or whether the plaintiff has a right to redeem, is not submitted, and we can give no direction as to the final disposition of the cause. It should have proceeded to a decree upon the merits before the sitting justice, and then come here by appeal, or the whole cause—both law and fact—should have been reported. Ordinarily a partial report like this would be discharged.

But notwithstanding the irregularity, as the parties appear to have stipulated that after decision here...