Mercantile Trust Co. v. Wood

• Decision Date: 12 February 1894
• Docket Number: 339.
• Citation: 60 F. 346
• Parties: MERCANTILE TRUST CO. v. WOOD et al.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Eighth Circuit

60 F. 346

MERCANTILE TRUST CO. v. WOOD et al.

No. 339.

United States Court of Appeals, Eighth Circuit.

February 12, 1894

William J. Roberts (John F. Lacey, on the brief), for plaintiff in error.

Carroll Wright, for defendants in error.

Before CALDWELL and SANBORN, Circuit Judges, and THAYER, District Judge.

SANBORN Circuit Judge.

The controversy in this case was over a stock of goods that was in the possession of the Crescent Coal Company at What Cheer in the state of Iowa. Wood, Brown & Co., the defendants in error, attached this stock February 13, 1891, on a debt of the coal company due to them. The Mercantile Trust Company the plaintiff in error, intervened, and claimed the goods under a mortgage made to it by the coal company, dated February 1, 1890. There were two controlling issues tried. They were whether or not the mortgage covered the stock of goods, and, if so, whether or not the mortgage was fraudulent and void as to the attaching creditors. A jury was waiver and the case was tried by the court. The court found that the mortgage did not describe the goods in controversy, and that if it did, it was fraudulent and void as against the attaching creditors, and ordered judgment in their favor. The judge filed a careful and exhaustive opinion, which covers 17 closely-printed pages of the transcript, in which he states the history of the case, the evidential facts he deems established, his ultimate conclusions from those facts, his reasons for these conclusions, and the judgment that he directs to be rendered in the case.

In their brief, counsel for plaintiff in error specified 26 supposed errors, some of fact, and others of law, based on various statements and conclusions found in this opinion. But, upon looking into the record, we find the questions they attempt to present are not material to the decision of this case. The only exceptions any of these specifications have to rest upon are four that purport to be taken 'to the findings and conclusions of the court in the following respects:' First. To so much of finding of fact No. 6 as relates to the defendants' possession of and dealing in the stock of goods after the attachment and the release of the same; second, to the third conclusion of the court that the stock of goods was not included in the mortgage; third, to the fourth conclusion of the court that the mortgage was fraudulent and void as to the attaching creditors; and, fourth, to the final conclusion in favor of the attaching creditors. Section 700 of the Revised Statutes, which governs the practice in this regard in this court, provides that: 'When an issue of fact in any civil cause in a circuit court is tried and determined by the court, without the intervention of a jury, according to section 649 (which provides for the waiver of a jury and a trial by the court), the rulings of the court in the progress of the trial of the cause, if excepted to at the time, and duly presented by a bill of exceptions, may be reviewed by the supreme court upon a writ of error or upon appeal; and when the finding is special, the review may extend to the determination of the sufficiency of the facts found to support the judgment.'

The special finding referred to in this conclusion is not a report of the evidence, but it must be, like the special verdict of a jury, a finding of the ultimate facts which the evidence establishes. The only question the special finding presents that would not be presented by a general finding is whether or not, in any view, the facts found in it are sufficient to support the judgment. With the single exception of this question, which is presented by the special finding itself, there are only two methods by which questions of law can be so presented to the court that tries the facts that this court can review them by writ of error. These methods are, first, by seasonable objections and exceptions to the rulings of the court upon the admission or rejection of evidence, and, second, by requesting the court, before the trial is ended, to make declarations of law, and excepting to its refusal to do so, and to its declarations of law, if any that do not accord with the propositions asked, in exactly the same way as instructions to a jury would be requested, and the rulings of the court giving or refusing them would be excepted to, if the trial was before a jury. The finding of the court, whether general or special, performs the office of a verdict of a jury. When it is made and filed, the trial is ended. Exceptions to the finding, or to statements of legal conclusions contained in it, or in an opinion in which it is contained, or in an opinion filed with it, avail nothing. They are as futile as exceptions to the verdict of a jury. When a case comes to this court upon a writ of error, this is ...