In re Petition of Thorndike

• Decision Date: 11 November 1926
• Citation: 153 N.E. 888,257 Mass. 409
• Parties: Petition of THORNDIKE (three cases).
• Court: United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court

257 Mass. 409

153 N.E. 888

Petition of THORNDIKE (three cases).

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, Suffolk.

Nov. 11, 1926.

Separate petitions by Carolyn A. Thorndike to establish truth of exceptions. Petitions dismissed.

Carolyn A. Thorndike, pro se.

RUGG, C. J.

These are three separate petitions to establish the truth of exceptions. They all relate to the same original case, which hitherto has been before this court on four petitions to establish exceptions, two reported respectively in 244 Mass. 429, 139 N. E. 208, and 252 Mass. 154, 147 N. E. 672, and two reported in 254 Mass. 256, 150 N. E. 296, and on another such petition dismissed on February 2, 1926, without opinion, on the authority of 254 Mass. 256, 150 N. E. 296. Thus five such petitions after verdict have already been passed upon in a single case.

No copy of the alleged bill of exceptions is attached to the first one of the present petitions filed on March 15, 1926. Exceptions, not presented to this court in the form in which they were originally filed, manifestly cannot be established. Hence that petition presents no question and cannot be considered. Ryder v. Jenkins, 163 Mass. 536, 40 N. E. 848.

The second of the present petitions was filed on March 24, 1926. It contains what purports to be a recital of previous proceedings. It refers to a motion for a new trial filed on September 14, 1925, and to ‘a motion for a hearing thereon raising a question of law,’ and to a motion for a new trial filed on January 4, 1926. No copies of such motions are annexed and nothing touching them is presented in this petition. The petition also refers to and sets forth ‘a motion for a new trial on a question of law,’ filed on January 29, 1926. That motion relates wholly to alleged errors committed by the judge who presided over the last trial by jury, stated in the petition to have ended on the 10th of November, 1920, in connection with the bill of exceptions filed as to that trial. Petition to establish those exceptions was dismissed on March 27, 1923, 244 Mass. 429, 139 N. E. 208. Manifestly such questions cannot now be raised in this way. Whatever errors were committed by the presiding judge with respect to those exceptions could have been raised and remedied in the petition to establish those exceptions, and in that way only. Questions of law as ground for setting aside a verdict and granting a new trial mean questions of law in connection with the trial to the jury or to the court and not questions touching the allowance and establishment of exceptions saved at that trial. All such questions and errors were extinguished in every legal sense when the petition to establish those exceptions was dismissed.

That motion, filed on January 29, 1926, set out no ground for a new trial. The last trial by jury may have been entirely free from error, even if all the allegations of that motion for a new trial be assumed to be true. In these circumstances the plaintiff suffered no injury from any alleged rulings or directions concerning that motion.

The bill of exceptions sought to be established by this petition filed on March 24, 1926, was filed by the petitioner on February 27, 1926. It was returned to the petitioner, according to the allegations of the petition, with certain of her motions, by order of the court, on March 4, 1926, with the statement that, by order of the court ‘no more papers be received or filed in said case, unless the court shall so order.’ That order presents no error in the circumstances here disclosed. ‘The policy of the law requires that litigation be terminated within a reasonable time and not protracted at the mere option of the parties,’ or of one of them. Exporters of Manufacturers' Products, Inc., v. Butterworth-Judson Co., 258 U. S. 365, 369, 42 S. Ct. 331, 332 (66 L. Ed. 663);Boston Bar Association v. Casey, 227 Mass, 46, 48, 49, 116 N. E. 541;Petition of Thorndike, 250 Mass. 408, 145 N. E. 762;Petition of Thorndike, 254 Mass. 256, 150 N. E. 296. The court has power to protect its records from irrelevant, unimportant or superfluous papers and to take rational steps to end litigation. This order was directed to that end and was warranted.

[7] The third of the present petitions was filed on June 2, 1926. It contains numerous allegations respecting the motion for a new trial filed on January 29, 1926, in substitution for earlier motions filed in the same month. These need not be considered because that motion has been settled by what has already been said touching the second of the present petitions. It may be added that it here is alleged that said motion of January 29, 1926, was ordered heard before the judge who presided over the last jury trial, on June 2, 1926. In this there...