Johns v. Adams Bros.

2 Wyo. 194
CourtWyoming Supreme Court
DecidedMarch 15, 1880
StatusPublished
Cited by4 cases

This text of 2 Wyo. 194 (Johns v. Adams Bros.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Wyoming Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Johns v. Adams Bros., 2 Wyo. 194 (Wyo. 1880).

Opinions

Sener, C. J.

This case was an action at law upon which a judgment was rendered by the first district court held in and for the county of Laramie at its May term, 1878, and is here now for consideration — not on its merits, but on a motion to dismiss — which was argued and allowed at the last regular term of this court, but afterwards, upon application of the plaintiff in error, a re-argument of the motion to dismiss was allowed, and now we are first to consider the motion of the defendants in error to dismiss, because the record as brought here shows no bill of exceptions.

The necessity of a bill of exceptions to bring a judgment into this court properly for review, in order to reverse, modify or vacate it if this court then shall seem to have been in error requiring it to do so, repeatedly ruled on in this court, it is only necessary to refer to the following syllabus of reported cases, 1 Wyoming, to show the nature and extent of these rulings.

After the motion for a new trial has been made and overruled by the court below and an exception taken thereto, such party must have his bill, containing all exceptions together with a motion for a new trial, signed or allowed by the presiding judge of the court below. Murrin v. Ulman, in 1 Wyo., 36.

If the plaintiff in error has not proceeded in accordance with the foregoing rules, it is correct practice for the defendant in error to move the court to dismiss the proceedings in error. Id.

In proceedings in error, the record of the court below must show that a bill of exceptions, containing the exceptions upon which the plaintiff in error relies, was duly made up and signed- by the judge of said court within the time limited by statute. Greer v. Murrin, 37.

After a motion for a new trial has been made and overruled by the court below and an exception taken thereto, such party must have his bill containing all exceptions upon which he relies, together with the motion for a new trial, signed or allowed by the judge of the court below. Id.

[196]*196If the plaintiff in error has not proceeded in accordance with the foregoing rules, it is the correct practice for the defendant in error, to move the court to dismiss the proceedings in error. Id.

These decisions were rendered nearly nine years ago, and are to be sustained as precedents because conformable to the organic law of the territory and its code, and because they are in harmony with the decision of the United States supreme court, in Thompson v. Riggs, 5th Wallace, wherein Judge Clifford says for the court: “Settled practice in this court is that neither the rulings of the court in admitting or rejecting evidence can be brought here in any other way than by a bill of exceptions.”

But counsel, in arguing for plaintiff in error and against the motion to dismiss, maintained that rule 5 of this court, which requires a bill of exceptions, in which all exceptions, and the motion for a new trial shall be made and embraced,' to be essential to proceedings here, is in conflict with the organic act of the territory, its code and subsequent session acts. To this it seems to us only necessary to say:

I. That the necessity of always applying for a new trial in the same court is to be found in the facts that the laws of the territory, civil 'and criminal, make provision for and point out with great exactness, all the methods of such applications, and further provide how courts which have heard cases shall re-hear them. The organic act, and the laws of the territory, all alike contemplate a resort to an appellate court only when every effort has failed in the lower court, and then the party coming into the appellate court or court in error, must come under such regulations as are provided by law, not inconsistent with the organic act of the territory, and it will presently be seen that by force of the statute law of the territory the rules of this court not inconsistent with the laws of this territory, and they are not, are given all the force of statute law. They deprive no man of his right, certainly at this late day. They only-point out the course to be pursued by him while asserting [197]*197his rights. In doing this in a law forum, he surely must always do it according to law.

II. That every party in a lower court is required to except to every thing done there which he deems prejudicial to his rights, and to save the benefit of these exceptions and objections, including the motion for a new trial; he is required by the code and subsequent laws, as well as by rule 5 of this court, not only reasonably to except, but to preserve such exceptions and objections he must resort to a bill of exceptions in which they shall all be set forth and shown, the same to be signed and allowed by the judge conducting the trial.' Rule 5, therefore, of this court, is in the very line of this court’s duty to prescribe,- and was not intended to work an injury, but to point out in practice, what would be required of all who came here seeking to set aside decrees or judgments of the court below.

The general laws of Wyoming,- section 4, chapter 106, page 645, make it not permissive to this court to provide rules for perfecting and conducting proceedings in error and by appeal, but mandatory upon it to do so, and these rules when framed, are by the legislation given all the force of .law, when not inconsistent with the organic act of the territory or its laws passed in pursuance thereof, for it is expressly declared by statute — General Laws of Wyoming, chapter 106, section 4, page 545, — that when not inconsistent with the organic act and laws of the territory that they are, when promulgated, to be as binding as legislative enactments upon the courts and upon the parties practicing and having business therein. Language could not be fuller or of greater force in establishing the validity of these rules.

But it was further contended by counsel for plaintiff in error that rule 5 of this court, which provides that “no case will be heard in court unless a motion for a new trial shall have been made in the court below in which all matters of error and exceptions have been presented, argued, and the motion overruled, and exceptions taken to the over-rulings of said motion, all to be embraced in the bill of [198]*198exceptions,” is contrary to the laws of this territory, because by section 10 of the act of December 15, 1877, in relation to the appointment of an official stenographer, it is provided that “any transcription herein provided for shall, when by said stenographer certified correct as aforesaid and as paid for, be filed among the papers of the case, action or matter in which the same was tried as investigated, and such transcript so filed, shall prima facie, be deemed to be and taken as a .correct statement of such testimony, proceedings or the investigation and the record thereof.

And because of the words “that testimony so .taken shall prima facie be the records,” &c., it is claimed that no bills of exceptions are necessary to bring cases here by writ of error, and that in such cases the stenographer’s transcript shall have in this court the force of a bill of exceptions allowed and signed by a judge below.

Thus to hold, would be in effect to say, that section 308 of the General Laws of Wyoming, page 71, is repealed.

This is not done in terms, certainly, nor do we think the legislature meant to do so by implication.

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Related

Freeburgh v. Lamoureux
73 P. 545 (Wyoming Supreme Court, 1903)
Conway v. Smith Mercantile Co.
49 L.R.A. 201 (Wyoming Supreme Court, 1896)
Boulter v. State
42 P. 606 (Wyoming Supreme Court, 1895)
United States v. Trabing
6 P. 721 (Wyoming Supreme Court, 1885)

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Bluebook (online)
2 Wyo. 194, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/johns-v-adams-bros-wyo-1880.