William Notley v. Cecil Brown

• Decision Date: 24 February 1908
• Docket Number: No. 68,68
• Citation: William Notley v. Cecil Brown, 208 U.S. 429, 28 S.Ct. 385, 52 L.Ed. 559 (1908)
• Parties: WILLIAM NOTLEY, Charles Notley, and Maria Hughes, Plffs. in Err., v. CECIL BROWN and Anthony Lidgate, Proponents of the Will of Charles Notley, Deceased, et al
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

208 U.S. 429

28 S.Ct. 385

52 L.Ed. 559

WILLIAM NOTLEY, Charles Notley, and Maria Hughes, Plffs. in Err.,

v CECIL BROWN and Anthony Lidgate, Proponents of the Will of Charles Notley, Deceased, et al.

No. 68.

Argued January 24, 1908.

Decided February 24, 1908.

Messrs. Robert M. Morse, William M. Richardson, Sidney M. Ballou, and J. J. Dunne for plaintiffs in error.

[Argument of Counsel from pages 429-432 intentionally omitted] Messrs. Aldis B. Browne, W. L. Stanley, Alexander Britton, and Henry Holmes for defendants in error.

[Argument of Counsel from pages 432-433 intentionally omitted] Mr. Justice White delivered the opinion of the court:

In a contest in a Hawaiian court of probate certain documents were held not to have been executed under undue influence, and were admitted to probate as the last will and testament and codicils thereto of Charles Notley. On appeal to the circuit court, in term, upon motion of the contestants a jury was impaneled to try issues of fact embodied in two questions, which substantially required the jury to say whether undue influence had been exerted upon the testator. On the trial various exceptions were taken to rulings on the admission and rejection of evidence, and at the close of the evidence the trial judge granted a motion to instruct the jury to find a verdict sustaining the will.

The verdict was rendered January 28, 1903. On the same day the trial judge signed the following order, which was duly filed on the following day:

'Order for Entering up Judgment.

'Upon the entering up of the verdict on the appeal in this matter.,

'It is hereby ordered that the clerk of this court do sign and enter up judgment in favor of proponents of the last will and testament of Charles Notley, deceased, in accordance with said verdict, and the decree admitting said will and codicils to probate is hereby affirmed.

'Done in open court at Hilo this 28th day of January, 1903.'

On January 29, 1903, the clerk indorsed and filed a formal judgment. It would seem, however, that he did not then sign the face of the judgment, and perhaps did not enter it, as following the date of the judgment is this recital:

A. S. Le Baron Gurney, clerk fourth circuit court.

'Judgment entered this 28th day of January, 1903.

'(Seal) This 8th day of June, A. D. 1905, as of the 28th day of January, 1903.'

The following indorsement is also on the back of the judgment, under the indorsement of the filing on January 29, 1903: 'Filed June 8, 1905. A. S. Le Baron Gurney, clerk.' The record is silent as to how these additions to the judgment came to be made.

A motion to set aside the verdict and for a new trial having been overruled, the cause was taken on exceptions to the supreme court of Hawaii. In that court the action of the trial court in instructing a verdict was sustained and two motions for a rehearing were overruled, the last on August 2, 1904. 15 Haw. 435, 700, 16 Haw. 66. It will be observed that the last action of the court on the application for a rehearing was had nearly a year prior to the clerk's signature affixed to the face of the judgment on June 8, 1905, as of January 28, 1903, and the additional file mark on the back of the judgment made on June 8, 1905.

More than a year after the final action of the supreme court of the territory on the exceptions, that is, on November 24, 1905, a petition for a writ of error to the circuit court, with assignments of error, was filed in the supreme court of the territory on behalf of the contestants, praying that court to reverse a judgment entered in the circuit court. The petition for the writ recited the order admitting the will and codicils to probate, the appeal to the circuit court, the trial upon specified issues of fact, the motion to direct a verdict, the instruction to sign a certain form of verdict, the verdict, the taking of various exceptions, and the overruling of motions for a new trial. No reference was made in the petition for a writ of error to the fact that the exceptions reserved at the trial had been previously taken to the supreme court of the territory and had been there decided adversely to the contestants. The petition then proceeded to recite that on June 8, 1905,—which, it will be observed, was after the final action of the supreme court on the exceptions,—the contestants had in the circuit court filed a motion to set aside the 'order for entering judgment,' filed January 29, 1903, upon the ground that the order was obtained ex parte and without notice to or knowledge of contestants, and said motion was heard upon affidavit and oral evidence and was overruled, to which exception was duly taken, etc. It was further recited that on the same day, while this motion was pending, counsel for proponents moved that the clerk of the court be instructed to sign the judgment which had been previously made out on January 28, 1903, and filed on the next day, in conformity to the order of the court rendered on January 28, 1903, and that, on this motion being granted by the court, the judgment was entered and signed by the clerk, and the following exception was taken:

'Contestants except to the allowance of proponents' motion that the clerk of court be ordered to sign the form of judgment filed January 29th, 1903, and to the judgment so signed on the ground that such allowance is illegal, null, and void, and not justified by the law or evidence or record herein, and to the judgment on the ground that said judgment is contrary to the law and evidence and weight of evidence, and without authority of law, and is illegal, null, and void.

'Dated Hilo, June 8th, 1905.'

The first five of the grounds set forth in the assignment of errors made for the purpose of the writ of error prayed from the supreme court of the territory, as above stated, were but a reiteration of alleged errors asserted to have been previously committed by the trial court in instructing a verdict in favor of the will, and which had already been taken to the supreme court of the territory on the exceptions, and had been adversely passed upon by that court. The remaining assigned errors were as follows:

'Sixth. That the court erred in making the ex parte order of January 29, 1903, confirming the decree of Judge Little admitting the alleged will of Charles Notley to probate.

'Seventh. That the court erred in denying contestants' motion to set aside order of Judge Robinson filed January 29, 1903, confirming decree of Judge Little, admitting will to probate.

'Eighth. That the court erred in ordering the clerk to sign the form of judgment submitted by proponents.

'Ninth. That the court erred in entering judgment for the proponents in said matter of the estate of Charles Notley, deceased, being petition for probate of will.'

It may be observed that Judge Little was the judge by whom the will was originally admitted to probate, while Judge Robinson was the judge who presided at the trial in the circuit court and whose action in instructing a verdict had been approved by that this honorable court has heretofore, to the supreme court of the territory. The writ the circumstances just stated, was allowed on November 24, 1905, and on December 14, 1905, a motion to quash the writ was filed upon the following grounds:

'(1) That it is apparent upon the record that this honorable court has heretofore, to wit, on the 8th day of March, 1904, on the 3d day of June, 1904, and on the 2d day of August, 1904, decided the questions now sought to be reviewed and embraced in the assignment of errors filed herein; and

'(2) That the petition for writ of error was not filed nor the writ issued within six months from the rendition of judgment in said cause, the same having been rendered and filed on, to wit, the 29th day of January, 1903.'

After argument, for reasons stated in an opinion filed April 13, 1906 (17 Haw. 455), the supreme court of Hawaii granted the motion and dismissed the writ.

Although the court, in its opinion, declared that there was considerable force in the contention of the defendants in error that the writ should be dimissed because the only judgment rendered below was that of January 28, 1903, and therefore that the writ of error had not been sued out within the statutory limit, viz., six months from the rendering of the judgment, it did not rest its conclusion to dismiss upon that ground. The court, reviewing the controversy, held that every substantial question in the case had been already disposed of when the case was previously before it on exceptions. Without specifically analyzing the assignment of errors based on the action of the trial court on June 8, 1905, in directing the clerk to sign the judgment which had been made out in pursuance to the order of the court on January 28, 1903, those assignments were, in fact, treated as irrelevant or without merit, since it was held that, as a necessary result of the previous action of the court in finally disposing of the exceptions, judgment was required to be entered upon the verdict by operation of law on notice to the trial court of the overruling of the exceptions.

Although, as we have seen, the opinion of the supreme court of the territory just referred to was announced on April 13, 1906, no formal order or judgment in conformity to the opinion delivered by the court, quashing the writ, was entered until September 27, 1907. A few days after the delivery by the supreme court of the territory of the opinion referred to, that is, on April 18, 1906, three of the contestants served a formal notice on the fourth one, calling upon him to elect whether he would join them in a writ of error to be prosecuted from this court to the supreme court of the territory of Hawaii, to obtain a reversal of the judgment of the territorial court 'rendered against you and us . . . on the 8th day of March, 1904, a motion for rehearing having been heard and considered, and having been denied on the 3d day of June, 1904.' The contestant...