Goo Kim v. Holt

10 Haw. 653, 1897 Haw. LEXIS 57
CourtHawaii Supreme Court
DecidedFebruary 24, 1897
StatusPublished
Cited by9 cases

This text of 10 Haw. 653 (Goo Kim v. Holt) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Hawaii Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Goo Kim v. Holt, 10 Haw. 653, 1897 Haw. LEXIS 57 (haw 1897).

Opinion

OPINION OP THE COURT BY

JUDD, C.J.

At the February term, 1896, of the Circuit Court, Eirst Circuit, in an action of ejectment, the defendant in error obtained a verdict against the plaintiff in error for one undivided half of certain land situated at Hiukukahi, Waikiki, Oahu, described in Boyal Patent Ho. 7042 (L. C. A. 1386). Ho bill of excep[654]*654tions was filed by plaintiff in error. Within six months after the rendition of judgment, execution not baying been fully satisfied, the defendant below obtained a writ of error, assigning as causes of error, 1st, the refusal of the Circuit Court to instruct the jury as requested by counsel for defendant in the said cause; 2d, in having charged and instructed the jury as the same were charged and instructed therein by the court; 3d, in the rendering and receiving and entering judgment upon said verdict in said cause.

The petition for the writ exhibits the instructions asked for by plaintiff in error and refused. The petition does not state that the refusals to charge as prayed for were excepted to, nor that the charge to the jury was excepted to. The original requests to charge, of the plaintiff in error, show, in the handwriting of the trial judge, that they were “refused.” When the cause came before us for argument,. September 21, a postponement was granted and plaintiff in error on the 22d September filed a transcript from the official stenographer’s notes to the effect that plaintiff in error’s attorney stated as follows, presumably before the case went to the jury, “I except to the refusal of the court to give the charges requested and also upon Your Honor’s charge as given on the doctrine of estoppel. Also the instructions that you did give with regard to mesne profits and damages.”

The main question of the difficulty is whether the refusal of the court to charge as requested by plaintiff in error and the charge of the court given, are now in the record, so as to be available to the plaintiff in error. Section 4 of the statute defining writs of error (Chap. XOY. of the Laws of 1892) reads: “For all purposes of this Act the record shall be deemed to include all pleadings, motions, notes or bills of exceptions, exhibits, Clerk’s or Magistrate’s notes of proceedings, and if so desired by the plaintiff in error, a transcript of the evidence in the case.”

Section 3 of the Act prescribes that “A writ of error may be [655]*655Lad to correct any error appearing on the record, either of law or fact, or for any canse which might be assigned as error at common law;” * * *

The statute “to better define and declare the practice in trials by jury” (Chap. LVL, Laws of 1892) in its 5th section provides that requests for instructions in writing which the court cannot give must be marked by the judge, in the margin, “refused,” and “shall be filed in the cause and shall form a part of the record therein.”

So also, in section 2 the charge of the court when given orally and noted by the stenographer and thereafter transcribed or' when reduced to writing by the court and read, “shall be filed in the cause and shall constitute a part of the record thereof.”

■Are written requests for instructions and charges of courts, when in compliance with the above requirements, a part of the record for the purpose of Error as contemplated by the 3d and 4th sections of the statute of error above quoted? Section 4 of the Error Act will admit as “record” notes of exceptions, though not reduced to a bill of exceptions signed by the court. We so held in Woodward v. Republic, ante, p. 416, but in that case the exception to the ruling of law claimed to be erroneous had been allowed and signed by the judge.

We intimated in Cummings v. Iaukea, ante, p. 1, that where misjoinder was the error claimed, the plaintiff in error could have availed himself of it in Error, though he had not raised the point in the trial court and taken exceptions.

An instructive case is Dowling v. Baldwin, 1 S. & R., 296. Ho bill of exceptions had been tendered by counsel or sealed by the judge, but an Act of the legislature required the judge, •on request, to reduce his charge to writing “and file the same of record in the cause.” The court held that the charge so filed was available in Error as a part of the record. Says the court, per Tilghman, C. J., “An opinion filed by positive command •of law is of the body of the record and must so remain.” He held that it was even more of the body of the record than a bill [656]*656of exceptions which could be withdrawn by the party who tendered it. Judge Yates, concurring, said, “the bill of exceptions would contain nothing more than is spread on the record here upon the charge of the court upon a mere question of law, and upon the whole record we are bound to judge.” “It (the Act) did not intend to create new causes of error, nor to limit the exercise of discretion as it represents new trials, postponing or ordering on causes for trial, or other matters collateral to the merits of the cause; but it left the power of the Superior Court as to a review, in the same manner as if the record was brought before them on a bill of exceptions sealed at the trial.”

The statute here, as in Pennsylvania, is silent as to the consequence of making the instructions refused or the charge given (when made up in the form required by the statute) a part of the record — whether it be for the purposes of exception or of error. But the instruction and the charge here are in the record, and, as the statute says, Sec. 3, the writ may be had to “correct any error appearing on the record whether of law or fact,” it follows that any errors in either of them may be corrected on this writ.

The Indiana code requires the judge to write on the margin of each written request for instruction the words “refused and excepted to” or “given and excepted to,” (Thornton, Juries and Instructions, jd. 206), but all our statute requires is that the judge shall write “given” or “refused,” as the case may be.

It is contended on the other hand that it would be unfair to the court to allow an instruction or a refusal to instruct or a charge of the court given or refused to be available on review, without objecting to it at the time and thus call the court’s attention to it, so as to enable the court to make the correction if it so desired. It is true, as laid down by Thompson on Trials, Yol. 2, Sec. 2394, that “it is a settled rule of procedure, if the court delivers to the jury an instruction which a party conceives to be erroneous and prejudicial to him, he must, if he would save the question for review in an appellate court, call [657]*657the attention of the trial court, at tlie time, to the supposed error, by an explicit objection. If be fails to do tbis tbe error is deemed waived, and be cannot — unless there is a practice tbat all objections are d'eemed saved, as tbere is in some jurisdictions — renew it in bis motion for a new trial, nor make it tbe subject of appellate review on a bill of exceptions.” Tbis view bas always obtained in tbis court. Hut as we bave seen tbe statute here bas made tbe refused instructions and tbe charge a part of tbe “record” and therefore available on a writ of error whether excepted to or not.

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Bluebook (online)
10 Haw. 653, 1897 Haw. LEXIS 57, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/goo-kim-v-holt-haw-1897.