Jordan v. Jordan

37 S.E. 556, 48 W. Va. 600, 1900 W. Va. LEXIS 92
CourtWest Virginia Supreme Court
DecidedDecember 21, 1900
StatusPublished
Cited by12 cases

This text of 37 S.E. 556 (Jordan v. Jordan) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering West Virginia Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Jordan v. Jordan, 37 S.E. 556, 48 W. Va. 600, 1900 W. Va. LEXIS 92 (W. Va. 1900).

Opinion

Brannon, Judge:

This is an action of ejectment in the circuit court of Mason County by A. Y. Jordan against E. E. Jordan. The circuit court directed the jury to find for the defendant, and the jury did so, and judgment was rendered for the defendant.

We must first inquire whether we can review the proceedings in the case at all, as the defendant moved the court to expunge from the record and disregard all the bills of exceptions presenting the merits of the case. This motion is made upon the claim that those bills of exceptions were made by the judge more than thirty days after the close of the term at which the case was tried. That term'in fact ended the 13th of May, 1898, as certified; but the court must judicially know that its term did not pass 21st of May, 1898, when the term in Putnam County began, as we take judicial notice of “courts of general jurisdiction, their judges, seals, rules and maxims in the administration of justice, and course of proceeding, including the duration and dates of terms of courts.” 1 Greenleaf, Evidence, s. '6a. The question is whether bill of exceptions No. 1, containing the evidence and all the proceedings in the ease, was made on the 9th of May or 3rd of August. An order in the ease on the 9th of May states that the plaintiff asked twelve instructions, which the court refused to give, and that to this action of the court “the plaintiff excepted and took a bill of exceptions, marked bill of exceptions No. 1, containing each and every one of said instructions, and which is made a part of the record herein.” At the end of the judgment in the same order we find the following: “Memorandum. Upon the trial of this cause the plaintiff ex-[602]*602eepted to several rulings of the court during the progress of the trial, both before and after the verdict, and upon motion of the plaintiff he has ninety days from the rising of this court to prepare formal bills of exception to said rulings, which are to be made part of the record in this cause when properly prepared for the purpose.” Then we have a vacation order showing that on the 3rd of August, the parties appeared before the judge and the plaintiff moved him to execute “bills of exception embodying the several exceptions taken by the plaintiff at the trial of the above entitled cause to the rulings and opinions of the court made during the trial thereof, which bills of exceptions are numbered, respectively, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight and nine, and make the same a part of the record in said cause, as of the 10th day of June, 1898, by a nunc pro tunc order, that being within thirty days from the date of the adjournment of the term of court at which said cause was tried;” and that the judge overruled that motion, but certified that upon the trial “the plaintiff having excepted to several rulings and opinions of the court, this day tendered his several bills of exceptions aforesaid numbered, respectively, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight and nine, and the same, together with the certificate of the evidence given in said cause, on this 3rd day of August, 1898, are signed, sealed and saved to him and made part of the record in said cause.” There is one bill of exceptions ÜTo. 1 in the printed record, and one only; and the question is, was it made on the 9th day of May or the 3rd day of August? Does it belong to the order of the 9th of May, or to that of the 3rd of August ? If it belongs to the one, it is in time; if to the other, it is not in time, and is not valid. The whole face of the case and its probabilities show that that bill of exceptions was not made on the 9th of May, and that no bill of exceptions was then made, but that the making-up of them was postponed to a future day. The order of the 9th of May is not explicit in saying, as it usually does, that the bill of exceptions was signed and sealed, which is a circumstance against the idea that it was then made up, it merely declaring that the plaintiff took a bill of exceptions. That no bill, of exceptions was made on that day is strongly manifested by the fact that on that same date, in the same order, at its close we find the memorandum stating that the matter of making up bills of exceptions “to several rulings of the court made during the progress of the trial of this cause both before [603]*603and after the verdict,” was postponed for ninety days to allow tne plaintiff “to prepare formal bills of exceptions to the said rulings.” Note, that this phraseology covers all the rulings during the trial, including that relative to the instructions. The motion for a nunc pro tunc order .shows that never before were the bills presented. What I have said on the face of the order of 9th of May is sufficient alone to show that no bill of exceptions was in fact made that day; but when we bring before us the judge’s order of 3rd of August, it strongly confirms this position, because it says that nine bills were presented to him, one being marked No. 1, and that those bills embody all the exceptions of the plaintiff to the rulings and opinions of the court made during the entire trial. Now, if the court had already made a bill of exception No. 1 on the 9th of May, why make another one on the 3rd of August? We do not find two bills numbered one, and if there were two, one is lost. And why does this order of the 3rd of August import that the nine bills then presented covered all the rulings in the case, if bill of exceptions No. 1, containing instructions and certificate of evidence, had already weeks before been made ? And observe that the judge’s order says that it was that day when he made the certificate of evidence given in the case, thus. unquestionably showing that never until the 3rd of - August did he make a certificate of the evidence, and when we turn to bill No. 1 we find embodied in it the evidence, conclusively proving that never, until that day, was that bill No. 1 made, and certainly proving conclusively that never till then was any certificate of evidence made. Moreover, we find in that bill No. 1 twelve instructions numbered from 1 to 12. They are surely the same ones named in the order of May 9, but never actually incorporated into a bill of exceptions until August 3rd. The judge’s order says that the certificate of evidence was made by him August the 3rd, and turning to the paper marked bill of exceptions No. 1, headed “Certificate of Evidence,” thus showing its date, we find in it this certificate of evidence; but we find other internal evidence on the face of that bill of exceptions No. 1 clearly showing that it was never made until August 3rd; for we find that the stenographer never finished the translation of the evidence taken in shorthand into long hand until June 30th. That translation could not have been completed on the 9th of May. And again, bill No. 1 gives all the evidence and proceedings, as upon a motion for a new [604]*604trial, tending to show that it was not a bill of exceptions taken 9th of May for the refusal of instructions. ' And still further, to show that the certificate of evidence and in fact, bill No. 1 incorporating it, were never made until August 3, let us remember that the order of 9th May does not speak of any certificate of evidence, which we know was not then presented, because the judge says that it was first presented on August the 3rd, and that order of the 9th of May speaks only of a bill of exceptions to the action of the.court refusing instructions, and as bill of exceptions one incorporates the evidence, the bill No. 1 before us, the only bill No. 1, could not be that referred to in the order of May 9. If the order of 9th May alone stated that bill No. 1 was made, and there was no order of August 3 showing that a bill No.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
37 S.E. 556, 48 W. Va. 600, 1900 W. Va. LEXIS 92, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/jordan-v-jordan-wva-1900.