Harper v. Minor

27 Cal. 107
CourtCalifornia Supreme Court
DecidedJuly 1, 1864
StatusPublished
Cited by26 cases

This text of 27 Cal. 107 (Harper v. Minor) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering California Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Harper v. Minor, 27 Cal. 107 (Cal. 1864).

Opinion

By the Court, Sawyer, J.

There are three appeals embraced in this record :

Firstly—An appeal from the judgment.
Secondly—An appeal from an order subsequent to judgment dismissing plaintiffs’ motion for new trial.
Thirdly—An appeal from an order subsequent to judgment, striking from the files of the Court plaintiffs’ statement on appeal.

On an appeal from the judgment, where there is no statement, we can only consider matters appearing in the judgment roll. This has been so often held, and so long settled, that there ought to be no further occasion to repeat it. The Practice Act states explicitly what papers shall constitute the judgment roll. They are, in a case where an answer has been filed, the summons, pleadings, verdict of the jury, or finding of the Court, and all bills of exceptions taken and filed in said action; and a copy of the judgment, and any orders relating to a change of the parties.” (Sec. 203.) The statute also defines a bill of exceptions.

The finding filed January 13, 1864, is the finding upon which the judgment appealed from is based. All between that and the pleadings drop out qf the case, and have no place in the transcript on appeal from the judgment, unless brought in by a statement on appeal. The report of the referee is simply a report of the testimony upon which the Judge based his findings. It forms no part of the judgment roll. Neither do the minutes of the Clerk, nor the intermediate orders of the Court, except “orders relating to a change of parties,” form any part of the judgment roll. If an appellant desires to have any intermediate orders affecting the judgment appealed from, and not forming a part of the judgment roll, reviewed, he must, by means of a statement on appeal, bring them into the record, together with such facts forming the basis of the orders, as are necessary to explain the action of the Court below. It is for this very purpose that the party is authorized by law to have a statement on appeal annexed to the record of the judgment, or the order from which the appeal is taken.

[110]*110The office of a statement on motion for hew trial, is, to bring into the record those matters only, which arise in the progress of the trial, and constitute the basis of the motion under the fifth, sixth and seventh subdivisions of section one hundred and ninety-three of the Practice Act, and which the party desires to have reviewed on appeal from the order granting or refusing a new trial; that of a statement on appeal, those orders and rulings together with the facts necessary to explain them, which are made in other stages of the proceedings in the case, and not during the progress of the trial, and not contained in the judgment roll. A party, however, who does not wish to raise any question as to the sufficiency of the evidence in this Court on an appeal from an order granting or refusing a new trial, but only desires to have rulings upon questions of law arising in the progress of the trial reviewed, may introduce such rulings upon questions of law, with sufficient evidence to point them, into Ms statement on appeal, or make a bill of exceptions as he proceeds, and in this manner have them reviewed on appeal from the judgment, thus obviating the expense of bringing up the evidence in a statement on motion for new trial. And, as it has long been the settled doctrine of this Court, that it will not balance conflicting evidence, or reverse a judgment on the ground of insufficiency of evidence, unless it is very clearly manifest that the evidence does not justify the verdict or findings, it is rarely useful to bring up the evidence, and the mode here suggested is ordinarily the better practice. Under the law as it now stands, it is still more rarely necessary, or proper, to bring up all the evidence, or even introduce all into a statement on motion for new trial. In a great majority of cases in which it is claimed, that the evidence is insufficient to support the verdict, the insufficiency relied on is confined to one or two points at most. The only contest in such cases is as to those points, and the statement should “specify the particulars in which such evidence is alleged to be insufficient ” (Practice Act, Sec. 195), and the testimony introduced into [111]*111the statement should be confined to those points alone. “The statement shall contain so much of the evidence or reference thereto as may be necessary to explain the particular points specified, and no more.” (Ib.) All testimony not bearing upon, illustrating, or obviating the objections specified, is irrelevant to the case made, and worse than a useless incumbrance of the record.

So, also, only such orders and rulings, and the facts necessary to explain the action of the Court below thereon, as the appellant desires to have reviewed, should be brought into the statement on appeal. Much less should a transcript be incumbered with them, when the appeal is from the judgment, where there is no statement on appeal. The practice often pursued by parties, or clerks—wherever the fault may be—of copying into the transcript all the orders and minutes of the Court below, is reprehensible in the extreme. It only involves parties in enormous expenses which are utterly useless, and imposes great labor on the appellate Court in endeavoring to ascertain what part of the transcript is really before it. The record now before us contains several hundred folios, at least, that should have no place in the transcript. We cannot consider it, now it is here. And the real question raised 'on the merits in the appellant’s brief arises on that portion of the transcript, which, for reasons already stated, is not properly before us; and, judging from the size of the printed book constituting the transcript, the cost of this useless matter must have amounted to several hundred dollars, for all which the persons having the matter in charge, and not the law, are responsible.

Sometimes the party opposing a new trial, or the respondent on appeal, insists upon introducing a large amount of irrelevant matter into the record. In all cases of abuses of the kind referred to, when it is clearly manifest that irrelevant matter to any considerable extent has been introduced into the record upon the instance of either party, and the question is properly presented, we shall not hesitate to visit the party who insisted upon its introduction with the costs of that por[112]*112tion of the transcript, whether he succeeds; upon the merits of the case or not.

In the case of Sutton v. Reed, 25 Cal. 478, the case of The Estate of James Boyd, 25 Cal. 511, and in the present case, as well as some others, we have endeavored to indicate distinctly what we deem to be the correct practice in respect to new trials and appeals, in, hopes that at no distant day a practice conforming in some degree to the spirit of our Practice Act may be attained. The general system prescribed seems to us to be simple, and we can see no reason for a practice so loose and diverse, as appears to prevail in many portions of the State.

Upon the judgment roll we find no error. The facts found are fully sufficient to support the judgment. It must, therefore, b'e affirmed.

Upon the second branch of the appeal, the question is, as to the power of the Court to extend the time to give notice of intention to move for a new trial. Due notice of the filing of the findings was given to appellant’s counsel on the 18th of January, 1864.

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Bluebook (online)
27 Cal. 107, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/harper-v-minor-cal-1864.