West v. Platt

• Decision Date: 02 April 1878
• Citation: 124 Mass. 353
• Court: United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court
• Parties: Samuel West v. Isaac L. Platt & another. Isaac L. Platt & another v. The Justices of the Superior Court

124 Mass. 353

Samuel West v. Isaac L. Platt & another.

Isaac L. Platt & another v. The Justices of the Superior Court

Supreme Court of Massachusetts

April 2, 1878

November 14, 1877;

Suffolk. The first case was an action of contract for the recovery of damages for breach of a contract for the sale and delivery of a quantity of plate glass, with a count for money paid.

At January term 1876 of the Superior Court, the case was submitted for judgment on an agreed statement of facts, by which, if the court should be of opinion, upon the case submitted, that the defendants had committed the breach of contract alleged, judgment was to be entered for the plaintiff for $ 2830.24 and interest, and otherwise judgment to be entered for the plaintiff for $ 410 and interest. The Superior Court entered judgment for the plaintiff for $ 464.53; and the plaintiff appealed to this court.

The case was argued in this court, and on June 23, 1876, this court transmitted a rescript to the Superior Court, ordering the clerk of that court to make the following entry under this case in the docket of that court, "Judgment affirmed," and containing the following brief statement of the grounds and reasons of the decision: "It does not appear but that the Superior Court decided the case upon inferences of fact. There is no error of law shown from which an appeal lies to this court." See 120 Mass. 421.

Upon the filing of that rescript in the Superior Court, the plaintiff filed a motion that the agreed statement of facts be discharged, and the case stand for trial by jury; and this motion was granted by Rockwell, J., who allowed a bill of exceptions, setting forth the facts above stated, and concluding as follows:

"The case was continued from term to term in the Superior Court to October term 1876, on motion, until the question could be heard by Judge Rockwell, who ordered the judgment appealed from. After a hearing, in which it appeared that the agreed statement contained no clause authorizing the court to draw inferences of fact, and from the recollection of Judge Rockwell, and evidence of what he stated to counsel for the plaintiff shortly after he entered judgment, that he, in fact, formed no opinion upon the case submitted, and drew no inferences of fact, and entered a judgment after reading only so much of the papers as was proper to determine the form of entry, the court granted said motion, and ordered that said agreed statement be discharged, and that said cause stand for trial by jury. The defendants, being aggrieved by such order except to the same."

Exceptions overruled.

D. E Ware, for the defendants.

O. W. Holmes, Jr. & W. A. Munroe, for the plaintiff.

Gray C J. Colt & Ames, JJ., & Morton, JJ., absent.

OPINION

By the Court.

The order of the Superior Court that the statement of facts be discharged, and the case stand for trial, is not a final judgment, and cannot be brought to this court by bill of exceptions until the trial so ordered shall have been had, and the case finally disposed of in the court below. Safford v. Knight, 117 Mass. 281. National Bank of Clinton v. Taylor, 117 Mass. 283 note. Hogan v. Ward, 117 Mass. 67. These exceptions have therefore been prematurely entered in this court, and must be

Dismissed.

The second case was an alternative writ of mandamus to compel judgment to be entered in the Superior Court in accordance with the rescript of this court, which that court, on motion made January 26, 1878, had declined to do, under the circumstances stated in the report of the first case supra, and appearing by the allegations of the alternative writ and of the return thereto, which were admitted to be true, and upon which the application for a peremptory writ was heard by Soule, J., and refused. To this refusal the petitioner alleged...