Welch v. Chase
| Decision Date | 29 January 1913 |
| Parties | WELCH v. CHASE et al. |
| Court | United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court |
The requested rulings were as follows:
'(1) Relief ought to be granted if judgment was rendered against the petitioner by reason of his failure to file his bill of exceptions within the time prescribed by law and his failure was due to a misapprehension of law, and it also appears that his application is otherwise reasonable and just.
'(2) The petitioner would not be guilty of laches by reason merely of delay in the filing of his bill of exceptions if his application for a writ of review is founded on sufficient reason, good faith and conscience.
'(3) Delay in the filing of the bill of exceptions and the entry of judgment against him would not constitute laches on the petitioner's part if the respondents fail to show in consequence thereof any serious wrong or injury resulting necessarily to themselves therefrom.
'(4) On a petition for a writ of review relief ought to be granted if it appear that the rights of the petitioner on the trial of the merits were not properly protected or safeguarded and an error of law by the court appears, or if to dismiss the petition would result in a miscarriage of justice.'
Wm J. Welch, pro se.
P O'Loughlin, of Boston, F. G. Katzmann, of Hyde Park, and Channing & Frothingham and J. P. Jackson, Jr., both of Boston, for respondents.
The petitioner asked for a review of judgment which had been rendered against him in favor of the respondents in an action of tort which he had brought against them. After hearing before a justice of the superior court his petition was disallowed and dismissed. He has alleged exceptions to this dismissal and to be refusal of the justice to give four requests for rulings made by the petitioner at the hearing.
It is settled that the first exception cannot be sustained. It was for the justice who heard the petition to determine as a matter of sound judicial discretion whether a review should be granted. No exception lies to the exercise of this discretion. If in the course of the hearing any erroneous rulings were made, either in the admission or exclusion of evidence or in passing upon any other question of law that became material, these may be brought before us upon exceptions. But the exercise of his discretionary power to determine whether, in view of all the circumstances shown before him and the situation and position of the parties interested, it is just and equitable to review proceedings which have been concluded in a court of justice, is, if no specific errors have been committed, final. It is enough to cite two of the many decisions which have settled this rule. Parke v. Murdock, 177 Mass. 453, 59 N.E. 80; Stillman v. Donovan, 170 Mass. 360, 49 N.E. 628.
The rulings asked for by the petitioner were rightly refused. The first and fourth of his requests went upon the ground that if certain facts were found which might have a bearing, some of them a strong bearing, upon...
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