Gupton, In re

• Decision Date: 30 September 1953
• Docket Number: No. 106,106
• Citation: Gupton, In re, 77 S.E.2d 716, 238 N.C. 303 (N.C. 1953)
• Court: North Carolina Supreme Court
• Parties: In re GUPTON.

Page 716

77 S.E.2d 716

238 N.C. 303

In re GUPTON.

No. 106

Supreme Court of North Carolina.

Sept. 30, 1953

T. A. Burgess, Rocky Mount, and Yarborough & Yarborough, Louisburg, for petitioner, appellant.

W. O. Rosser, Whitaker, for respondent, appellee.

ERVIN, Justice.

The law of the land clause embodied in Article I, Section 17, of the North Carolina Constitution guarantees to the litigant in every kind of judicial proceeding the right to an adequate and fair hearing before he can be deprived of his claim or defense by judicial decree. Eason v. Spence, 232 N.C. 579, 61 S.E.2d 717; National Surety Corp. v. Sharpe, 232 N.C. 98, 59 S.E.2d 593.

Where the claim or defense turns upon a factual adjudication, the constitutional right of the litigant to an adequate and fair hearing requires that he be apprised of all the evidence received by the court and given an opportunity to test, explain, or rebut it. In re Edwards' Estate, 234 N.C. 202, 66 S.E.2d 675; State v. Gordon, 225 N.C. 241, 34 S.E.2d 414; Interstate Commerce Commission v. Louisville & N. R. Co., 227 U.S. 88, 33 S.Ct. 185, 57 L.Ed. 431.

The judgment sets at naught the petitioner's constitutional right to an adequate and fair hearing. It deprives him of his claim to the custody of his daughter upon a factual adjudication based in substantion part upon evidence of an unrevealed nature gathered by the presiding judge in secret from...