Sullivan v. Roche

• Decision Date: 13 October 1926
• Citation: 257 Mass. 166,153 N.E. 549
• Parties: SULLIVAN v. ROCHE.
• Court: United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court

257 Mass. 166

153 N.E. 549

SULLIVAN

v.ROCHE.

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, Suffolk.

Oct. 13, 1926.

Appeal from Superior Court, Suffolk County; F. T. Hammond, Judge.

Bill in equity by John J. Sullivan against Charles J. Roche to set aside bilateral contract for purchase of real estate. From findings and final decree for petitioner, defendant appealed, and petitioner moved to dismiss appeal for want of prosecution. From an order sustaining motion to dismiss the appeal, defendant appeals. Order for final decree reversed.J. J. Enright, of Boston, for appellant.

J. H. Coakley, of Boston, for appellee.

RUGG, C. J.

This is a suit in equity. Its aim is to set aside a bilateral contract, by the plaintiff to buy and by the defendant to sell, real estate on the ground that its execution by the plaintiff was procured by the fraud of the defendant, and for incidental relief. The case was heard on its merits on May 13, 1925. On May 18, 1925, the trial judge filed a paper entitled ‘Findings,’ which contained his findings of material facts and a ruling that on those facts the plaintiff was entitled to relief. The defendant filed an appeal from these ‘findings' on May 20, 1925. Several requests by the defendant for rulings of law are printed in the record just before the ‘findings' and are duly attested by the clerk, and it has not been suggested that they were not seasonably presented. The defendant filed on May 21, 1925, a claim of exceptions on the ground of the refusal of the court to grant these rulings. A final decree was entered on May 21, 1925. From that decree an appeal was filed by the defendant on May 26, 1925. On June 22, 1925, the petitioner moved that the defendant's appeal be dismissed for want of prosecution. On this motion the judge found that the order for printing first was given and the necessary deposit made on June 26, 1925, one month after the appeal from the final decree. No facts are found warranting that delay. The judge ruled on the authority of Griffin v. Griffin, 222 Mass. 218, 110 N. E. 296.Loonie v. Wilson, 233 Mass. 420, 124 N. E. 272, and Robinson v. Donaldson, 251 Mass. 334, 147 N. E. 679, that the appeal had not been entered ‘forthwith’ as required by G. L. c. 214, § 19, and ordered that the motion to dismiss the appeal be allowed. From this order the defendant appealed.

The rights of the parties must be determined on this somewhat complicated record.

[1] The claim of appeal from the ‘findings' made by the judge, so far as it consisted in a finding of facts, was of no effect. There is no report of the evidence. There is no right of appeal from findings of facts when no evidence is reported. No question of law is presented by such an appeal. It is nugatory according to settled equity practice. Whether such findings are within the scope of the bill and warrant affirmative relief may be open on an appeal from a final decree. First Baptist Society in Brookfield v. Dexter, 193 Mass. 187, 189, 79 N. E. 342;Armstrong v. Orler, 220 Mass. 112, 107 N. E. 392;Hale v. Blanchard, 242 Mass. 262, 264, 136 N. E. 102; Com. of Banks in re Cosmopolitan Trust Co., 249 Mass. 144, 147, 144 N. E. 73.

The requests for rulings presented pertinent questions of law vital to the decision of the case. The ruling of the judge in his ‘findings,’ to the effect that the plaintiff was entitled to the relief prayed for, was in substance and effect a denial of the requests for rulings, although they were not specifically passed upon. The facts found did not render them inapplicable. They raised pertinent questions of law under the facts found. John Hetherington & Sons, Ltd., v. William Firth Co., 210 Mass. 8, 17, 18, 95 N. E. 961.

The claim of exceptions within three days after the filing of the finding and ruling of the judge, which was in effect a denial of the requests for rulings of law, was made within a reasonable time in the absence of special facts showing the contrary. Simmons v. Poole, 227 Mass. 29, 33, 116 N. E. 227;Hurley v. Boston Elevated R. Co., 213 Mass. 192, 99 N. E. 1056. See rule 45 of the superior court (1923).

[4] It was open to the defendant to take and prosecute exceptions to the refusal to give these rulings, although it is much the preferable method to bring to the full court questions of law arising in equity by appeal. G. L. c. 231, § 113; McCusker v. Geiger, 195 Mass. 46, 52, 80 N. E. 648;Zeo v. Loomis, 246 Mass. 366, 369, 141 N. E. 115.

The seasonable filing of the claim of exceptions in these circumstances deprived the court of power to enter a final decree until that claim of exceptions was in some way disposed of. The decree entered by the court, although in form final, must be treated simply as an order for a final decree in those terms. Welsh, Petitioner, 175 Mass. 68, 55 N. E. 1043;Tyndale v. Stanwood, 186 Mass. 59, 71 N. E. 83.Sasserno v. Sasserno, 240 Mass. 583, 134 N. E. 239. The change in practice wrought by St. 1926, c. 177, approved on March 31, 1926, is of no avail in these circumstances. It follows that the defendant's appeal from that decree was not an appeal from a final decree.

The claim of exceptions was the foundation of a right to file a bill of exceptions within the time required by law. If a bill of exceptions in due form is not filed within the time prescribed by law, the taking of the exceptions confers no rights. The case stands then as if no exceptions had been taken. G. L. c. 231, § 113; Hack v. Nason, 190 Mass. 346 76 N. E. 906;Barnard Mfg. Co. v. Eugen C. Andres Co., 234 Mass. 148, 152, 125 N. E. 170;Lawrence v. Board of Registration in Medicine, 239 Mass. 424, 427, 132 N. E. 174.

An examination of the docket entries shows that no bill of exceptions has ever been filed. It is plain, therefore, that the rights of the defendant under his claim of exceptions were gone on the expiration of 20 days from the date of receipt of notice of the rulings to which exception was taken. While that date does not appear exactly on this record, it plainly was not later than the filing of the claim of exceptions on May 21, 1925. The right to file exceptions, therefore, had gone before the motion to dismiss the appeal for want of prosecution was filed.

It need not be determined whether there was ground for a finding that the claim of exceptions had been waived by the defendant. The judge who dismissed the appeal from the so-called final decree for want of prosecution makes no finding on that point but proceeds on the theory that the final decree was entered on May 21, 1925. As already pointed out, that was not a final decree but...