Giacobbe v. First Coolidge Corp.

• Citation: 325 N.E.2d 922,367 Mass. 309
• Parties: Joseph GIACOBBE et al. 1 v. FIRST COOLIDGE CORPORATION et al. 2
• Decision Date: 03 April 1975
• Court: United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts

Page 922

325 N.E.2d 922

367 Mass. 309

Joseph GIACOBBE et al. ¹ v. FIRST COOLIDGE CORPORATION et al. ²

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, Suffolk.

Argued Feb. 4, 1975.

Decided April 3, 1975.

Marcus E. Cohn, Boston, for First Coolidge Corporation and another.

Sumner H. Woodrow, Boston, for plaintiff.

Before TAURO, C.J., and REARDON, QUIRICO, BRAUCHER and HENNESSEY, JJ.

QUIRICO, Justice.

This is an appeal by the defendants from an order by a single justice of this court allowing a motion of the plaintiff that he be permitted to make late payment to a clerk of the Superior Court for the estimated cost of reproducing the record for the appeal of a case to the Appeals Court. We hold that this appeal is not properly before us, and that, in any event, there is no error.

The record on appeal is too sketchy to exable us to determine the facts out of which this case arose. However, we rely in part on additional facts, apparently undisputed, which we are able to glean from the briefs and oral arguments of the parties. On November 30, 1973, a judge of the Superior Court entered an order sustaining a demurrer which had been filed by the defendants to a declaration of the plaintiff in an action then pending in that court. By his order the judge also denied the plaintiff leave to amend his declaration. On December 18, 1973, the plaintiff claimed an appeal from that order. On March 6, 1974, the clerk sent the plaintiff notice under G.L. c. 231, § 135, of the cost for reproducing the record for transmission to the Appeals Court. The plaintiff failed to pay the required amount within the statutory twenty-day period, and he filed no motion within that period to extend the time for payment. On June 29, 1974, the defendants filed a motion in the Superior Court to dismiss the plaintiff's appeal. The filing of this motion may have prevented the case from going to judgment in the Superior Court, but, because of events described below, it is of no further significance to this decision.

On July 16, 1974, the plaintiff filed with the clerk of this court for Suffolk County a document entitled 'Motion to Enlarge the Time for Docketing an Appeal,' in which he alleged that he had received notice of the cost of reproducing the record for transmission to the Appeals Court, that 'through inadvertence' he failed to pay the estimated cost within the twenty-day period prescribed by the statute and had made no application within that period for its extension, and that he is 'ready, willing and able to pay the estimated cost at the present time.' He then prayed 'that the time for docketing the appeal be enlarged and that . . . (he) be allowed to pay the estimated cost of reproduction of the record.' ³ On the same date the defendants filed a document opposing the plaintiff's motion on the following grounds: (1) this court is without jurisdiction to entertain the motion, (2) if the court has jurisdiction to entertain the motion, it has no power to enlarge the twenty-day period fixed by statute 'unless the motion to extend the time was filed prior to the expiration of the 20 day period,' and (3) the plaintiff's failure to pay the estimated cost within twenty days was not through inadvertence, but it was because he voluntarily chose not to expend any further moneys in suppoert of the litigation.

The plaintiff's motion was heard by a single justice on September 11, 1974. No evidence was offered by either party, and the hearing was limited to statements and arguments by counsel. There is no transcript or other statement before us of the proceedings at that hearing. On September 16, 1974, the single justice allowed the motion by an order which extended the time for payment of the estimated cost of reproducing the record to September 26, 1974. The defendants seasonably appealed therefrom to the full court and it is this appeal which is the subject of this opinion. We stress here that we do not have before us for appellate review the order of the Superior Court sustaining the defendants' demurrer to the plaintiff's declaration.

While many of the questions of law decided by this court on appellate review arise from interlocutory rulings or decisions of trial judges, it has long been our general 'rule of practice established in the interests of justice' (Weil v. Boston Elev. Ry., 216 Mass. 545, 548, 104 N.E. 343, 344 (1914)), that, absent special authorization, such interlocutory rulings or decisions cannot be presented piecemeal to this court for appellate review. They may be presented only as a part of the ultimate appellate pellate review available on completion of proceedings in the trial court. Boyce v. Wheeler, 133 Mass. 554 (1882). Lowd v. Brigham, 154 Mass. 107, 109--110, 26 N.E. 1004 (1891). Weil v. Boston Elev. Ry., 216 Mass. 545, 546--548, 104 N.E. 343 (1914). Weiner v. Pictorial Paper Package Corp., 303 Mass. 123, 125--129, 20 N.E.2d 458 (1939). Orasz v. Colonial Tavern, Inc.,--- Mass. ---, ---, ^a 301 N.E.2d 563 (1974). In the Weil case we said (216 Mass. 547, 104 N.E. 344): 'It would be an unendurable burden upon parties litigant if exceptions touching interloctuory matters could be brought to this court and its determination required as they arose in the progress of the case from time to time, before the issues of substance were finally disposed of in the trial court.' It would be an equally unendurable burden on the appellate courts if they were regularly required to review questions arising from interlocutory matters prior to the completion of proceedings in the trial courts.

The ruling of the single justice allowing the plaintiff to make late payment of the cost of reproducing the record on appeal is in every sense an interlocutory ruling. The appeal therefrom should not have been presented to this court for review separate from the appeal from the ruling of the judge of the Superior Court sustaining the defendants' demurrer. ⁴ The appeal must therefore be dismissed. Our conclusion on this point would, of course, be different if the single justice had reported his order to the full court for appellate review. See Mass. R.Civ.P. 64, --- Mass. --- (1974), and Mass.R.App.P. 5, --- Mass. --- (1974), for present provisions on report of interlocutory matters; and see G.L. c. 231, § 111, and G.L. c. 214, §§ 30, 31 and 31A, for statutory provisions applicable thereto prior to July 1, 1974. ⁵

Although for reasons already discussed the defendants are not entitled to relief on this appeal, we think that in view of the major changes made by the Massachusetts Rules of Civil Procedure which took effect on July 1, 1974, and in recognition of the transitional problems involved for litigants and members of the bar generally, we ought to express our opinion, by way of dictum, on the defendants' contention that the single justice was without power to enter the order in question. See Wellesley College v. Attorney Gen., 313 Mass. 722, 731, 49 N.E.2d 220 (1943).

The defendants' argument is basically the following. On March 6, 1974, the plaintiff received notice from the clerk of the estimated cost of reproducing the record on appeal. By G.L. c. 231, § 135, the plaintiff was required to pay that sum to the clerk within twenty days after receiving the notice, and he did not pay it. He was permitted, within the twenty days, to ask the court to extend the time for making the payment, and he did not do that. Therefore, say the defendants, the plaintiff's right to prosecute the appeal further came to an end and could not be revived by any judge. In support of their argument they cite the cases of Buchannan v. Meisner, 279 Mass. 457, 462, 181 N.E. 742 (1932), Stanwood v. Adams Garage Inc., 281 Mass. 452, 183 N.E. 846 (1933), Flood v. Grinnell, 286 Mass. 214, 189 N.E. 833 (1934), and Royal Tool & Gauge Corp. v. Clerk of the Courts for the County of Hampden, 326 Mass. 390, 392, 94 N.E.2d 781 (1950).

It is clear that after the expiration of the period of twenty days limited by the statute it was beyond the power of a judge of the Superior Court to give the plaintiff any relief to revive his intended appeal. However, that same prohibition did not apply to a single justice of this court. Prior to July 1, 1974, a single justice of this court had the authority to give relief in that situation by virtue of G.L. c. 211, § 11, and G.L. c. 231, § 133. Assessors of Swampscott v. Lynn Sand & Stone Co., 360 Mass. 595, 596-597, 277 N.E.2d 97 (1971). ^b Smith, petitioner, --- Mass. ---, ---, ^c 282 N.E.2d 412 (1972). After July 1, 1974, the single justice had the same authority by virtue of several provisions of the new Massachusetts Rules of Appellate Procedure. ⁶

The new Massachusetts rules of civil and appellate procedure which took effect on July 1, 1974, were patterened on the time-tested rules which had governed these procedures in the Federal Courts for many years. Mass.R.Civ.P. 1, --- Mass. --- (1974), reads that those rules 'shall be construed to secure the just, speedy, and inexpensive determination of every action.' One of the purposes of the rules of appellate procedure was undoubtedly to simplify that procedure by eliminating many of the previous rigid statutory time limitations which often served as fatal or near-fatal booby traps for inexperienced or unwary practitioners taking a case from the trial court to the appellate court. To the extent possible, we should construe these new rules in a manner which will accomplish their obvious purpose and objective. While the new rules still include many time limitations for doing specified acts, they also include provisions giving the courts broad discretion and authority to permit a deserving party, on a showing of 'excusable neglect' or 'good cause,' to prosecute an appeal notwithstanding his failure to comply with a procedurel time limitation. ⁷ The standards pertaining to the content of the record on appeal, and the time limitation on the filing of the record, are now found primarily in Rules...