The Columbia Manufacturing Company and Eli P. Williams v. The Stoddard Manufacturing Company

• Decision Date: 10 March 1900
• Docket Number: 11,511. [*]
• Citation: 60 P. 320,61 Kan. 640
• Parties: THE COLUMBIA MANUFACTURING COMPANY AND ELI P. WILLIAMS v. THE STODDARD MANUFACTURING COMPANY
• Court: Kansas Supreme Court

60 P. 320

61 Kan. 640

THE COLUMBIA MANUFACTURING COMPANY AND ELI P. WILLIAMS v. THE STODDARD MANUFACTURING COMPANY

No. 11,511. ^[*]

Supreme Court of Kansas

March 10, 1900

Decided January, 1900.

Error from court of appeals, southern department; A. W. DENNISON B. F. MILTON, and M. SCHOONOVER, judges.

Reversed.

Frank O. Johnson, for plaintiffs in error.

Geo. W Allison, for defendant in error.

OPINION

PER CURIAM:

In this case the Stoddard Manufacturing Company was the plaintiff in error in the court of appeals. In that court the Columbia Manufacturing Company moved to dismiss the proceedings in error. The motion was overruled and from the order overruling it error has been prosecuted to this court. The case was tried in the district court by a judge pro tem. who allowed 150 days for making and serving a case-made, and 20 days after the expiration of said 150 days within which to suggest amendments, and who ordered that the case be settled upon 10 days' notice to be given by either party. In the order granting time to make and settle the case, no specific time was fixed for its settlement, nor any time limited for the giving of the notice of settlement. The notice to settle the case was not given until after the lapse of nearly four months after the expiration of the period fixed for making and serving the case and suggesting amendments. The ground of the motion to dismiss, therefore, was that the term of office of the judge pro tem. had expired before the case was settled by him, and that he had, accordingly, lost jurisdiction to make the settlement.

Within the decision of K. & C. P. Rly. Co. v. Wright 53 Kan. 272, 36 P. 331, the motion to dismiss should have been sustained. In that case no specific time was fixed for the settlement of the case, but it was ordered that, upon the making and serving of the case and the suggestion of amendments thereto within the times limited therefor, the case should be thereafter settled on five days' notice. Upon that state of facts it was remarked:

"The only contingency which warrants an ex-judge in settling and signing a case is, that at the expiration of his term the time was actually fixed for making or settling and signing the case. In this case, when the term of the judge who tried the case had expired, the case had been served, the time for suggesting amendments had expired, and no time had been fixed by the court, or by the parties under its order for settling and signing such case. It is true the case was to be...