Mahan v. Sparks

10 Alaska 292
CourtDistrict Court, D. Alaska
DecidedJune 8, 1942
DocketNo. 4786
StatusPublished

This text of 10 Alaska 292 (Mahan v. Sparks) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, D. Alaska primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Mahan v. Sparks, 10 Alaska 292 (D. Alaska 1942).

Opinion

PRATT, District Judge.

I. This is an action of an equitable nature to quiet title to water rights. Judgment was entered in favor of the defendants upon the 14th day of February, 1942.

On May 11, 1942, the plaintiffs filed in this case a notice of appeal which was addressed to the defendants and their attorney. It notified them that the plaintiffs thereby took an appeal from the above-mentioned judgment to the United States Circuit Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. The notice was evidently drawn to comply with Rule 73 of the Rules of Civil Procedure for the District Courts of the United States, 28 U.S.C.A. following section 723c.

As said Rules of Civil Procedure just mentioned do not apply to Alaska (O’Brien’s Manual of Appellate Procedure, Third Edition, 1941, page 123), it becomes necessary to determine whether this notice, which in no way requested any action on the part of the court, can suffice as a petition for an appeal.

In the case of Robie v. Hart, Schaffner & Marx, 8 Cir., 1940, 40 F.2d 871, a notice of appeal similar to that served in this case was under consideration. The court held, page 872 of 40 F.2d: “This ‘notice’ was not intended to be an application or petition for an appeal, is not such in fact, and cannot be given that effect. This statute requires an ‘application’ for the appeal. While courts should be rather liberal in construing that word, yet they are not at liberty to [295]*295disregard its reasonable meaning, which, in this usage, necessarily carries the element of request. The circumstance that the trial court, after the three months, issued a citation based thereon, cannot supply the statutory requisite nor void the statutory meaning of the above word. Nor can the filing of briefs on the merits by appellee correct this situation, as being a consent or waiver. The requirements of this section are mandatory and jurisdictional, and not to be avoided by consent, waiver, or, even, order of court. * * * ”

To the same effect are the following cases: Share et al. v. United States, 8th Cir., 1931, 50 F.2d 669; Osborn v. United States, 4th Cir., 1931, 50 F.2d 712; United States v. New National Coal & Mining Co., 7th Cir., 1934, 72 F.2d 168; Vaughan v. American Ins. Co. of Newark, N. J., 5th Cir., 1926, 15 F.2d 526 (wherein notice of intention to appeal was held not to be a petition for an appeal).

II. On May 15, 1942, the defendants filed in the cause and presented to the court a petition for an appeal in this case.

A judgment having been entered upon the 14th day of February, 1942, there arises the question as to whether or not this petition for an appeal was filed within the three-months period allowed by law for the filing of an application for an appeal.

The Code of Civil Procedure, section 488, 31 Stat. page 412; Carter’s Alaska Code, page 248; section 3275, Compiled Laws of Alaska, 1933, provides: “The time within which an act is to be done, as provided in this code, shall be computed by excluding the first day and including the last, unless the last day fall upon a Sunday * * * or other legal holiday, in which case the last day shall also be excluded. The time for the publication of legal notices shall be computed so as to exclude the first day of publication and to include the day on which the act or event of which notice is given is to happen or which completes the full period required for publication.”

[296]*296In a general act, approved February 13, 1925, to amend the Judicial Code relative to the jurisdiction of Circuit Courts of Appeal and of the Supreme Court, it was provided in section 8(c), 43 Stat., page 940, 28 U.S.C.A. § 230: “No writ of error or appeal intended to bring any judgment or decree before a circuit court of appeals for review shall be allowed unless application therefor be duly made within three months after the entry of such judgment or decree.”

This act is now in force in Alaska.

Assuming said act to be governed by the provisions of section 3275, C.L.A. 1933, as to computation of time, the day on which the judgment in this case was entered, to wit, February 14, 1942, and upon which the plaintiffs could have taken an appeal therefrom, should be excluded in computing the three months within which an application for an appeal must be filed. The month, then, would have commenced with the beginning of February 15th and would have ended with the end of the fourteenth of each succeeding month. Thus, the 15th day of May was the beginning of the fourth month after the entry of the judgment in this case.

Section 3275, Compiled Laws of Alaska, 1933, aforesaid, was taken from the laws of Oregon, the Supreme Court of which has interpreted the same consistent with the interpretation above mentioned. Pringle Falls Electric Power & Water Co. v. Patterson et al., 1912, 65 Or. 474, 128 P. 820, 132 P. 527; Boothe v. Scriber, 1906, 48 Or. 561, 87 P. 887, 90 P. 1002; Sherwood v. State Industrial Accident Commission, 1940, 164 Or. 674, 103 P.2d 714; Osborne v. Zimmerman, 1940, 165 Or. 92, 105 P.2d 1097.

If said Act of Congress, approved February 13, 1925, is not considered to be within the Alaska Code and governed by the rule of interpretation set forth in said section 3275, Compiled Laws of Alaska, 1933, the result is just the same. Freeman v. Pew, 61 App.D.C. 223, 59 F.2d 1037; Burnet Com’r of Internal Revenue v. Willingham Loan & Trust Co., 282 U.S. 437, 51 S.Ct. 185, 75 L.Ed. 448; In re Hamilton, 7 Cir., 29 F.2d 281; Walters et ux. v. Baltimore [297]*297& O. R. Co., 3 Cir., 76 F.2d 599; Wheeler v. Lumbermen’s Mut. Casualty Co. et al., D.C., 6 F.Supp. 532.

As the provisions of section 230, 28 U.S.C.A., are mandatory and jurisdictional, the court has no power to grant a petition for an appeal which has not been filed within the statutory time.

III. (a) On February 14, 1942, but after the judgment had been entered in this cause, the plaintiffs filed a motion for a new trial. Findings of fact and conclusions of law had been duly entered in this cause upon the 9th day of February, 1942.

Section 227 of the Act of Congress, approved June 6, 1900, 31 Stat. 366; section 3646, Compiled Laws of Alaska, 1933, provides that a motion for a new trial shall be filed within three days “after giving the verdict or other decision sought to be set aside”. Excluding the 9th of February, the plaintiffs hád the 10th, 11th, and 12th days within which to file a motion for a new trial. As the 12th of February was a holiday, the time was extended until and including the 13th day of February, 1942. As it was not filed until February 14, 1942, it was not permitted by law and was overruled as being filed too late.

(b) On February 16, 1942, plaintiffs filed a motion entitled “Motion for New Trial and Alternative Motion to Vacate Judgment”. The court refused to consider the same as a motion for a new trial when the. same was called up for hearing upon the 6th of March, 1942, but did then and there consider and deny the same as a motion to vacate the judgment.

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10 Alaska 292, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/mahan-v-sparks-akd-1942.