People ex rel. Crane v. Judge of Wayne Circuit Court

• Decision Date: 16 April 1872
• Citation: 24 Mich. 513
• Court: Michigan Supreme Court
• Parties: The People on the relation of Walter Crane v. The Judge of the Wayne Circuit Court

24 Mich. 513

The People on the relation of Walter Crane v. The Judge of the Wayne Circuit Court

Supreme Court of Michigan

April 16, 1872

Heard April 16, 1872

Application for mandamus.

The relator brought ejectment in the Wayne circuit court against Edwin Reeder and Eliza Reeder. He claimed under a deed from the state upon a purchase of the lands as escheated lands. On the trial the defendants introduced a large amount of evidence to show that in the sale and conveyance of the lands by the state board of escheats to the plaintiff, a fraud was committed upon the state. The plaintiff requested the court to charge the jury that "there is no evidence in this case tending to show that this deed is void as against the defendants, on account of fraud;" which the court refused, and the plaintiff excepted. The verdict and judgment were for the defendants, and the plaintiff brought error. On settling the bill of exceptions the counsel were unable to agree; the plaintiff's counsel insisting that the whole evidence upon this subject should be incorporated in the bill of exceptions, and the defendants' counsel claiming that by the finding of the jury, upon certain special questions put to them, this point became immaterial in the case. The circuit judge refused to allow the evidence to be incorporated in the bill of exceptions, and the relator applies for mandamus, to compel him to do so.

Mandamus granted.

D. B. & H. M. Duffield, Henry M. Cheever and Theodore Romeyn, for the respondent.

William P. Wells and S. T. Douglass, for the relator.

OPINION

The Court held that where an exception is taken to a refusal to charge that there is no evidence tending to prove a certain point, the plaintiff in error, desiring to bring up for review this exception, is entitled to have incorporated into the bill of exceptions all the evidence bearing upon the point in question; and if the circuit judge refuses to so incorporate it, mandamus is the proper remedy.

Mandamus granted.