State ex rel. LaRue v. Hitchcock

153 S.W. 546, 171 Mo. App. 109, 1913 Mo. App. LEXIS 595
CourtMissouri Court of Appeals
DecidedFebruary 4, 1913
StatusPublished
Cited by8 cases

This text of 153 S.W. 546 (State ex rel. LaRue v. Hitchcock) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Missouri Court of Appeals primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
State ex rel. LaRue v. Hitchcock, 153 S.W. 546, 171 Mo. App. 109, 1913 Mo. App. LEXIS 595 (Mo. Ct. App. 1913).

Opinion

REYNOLDS, P. J.

(after stating the facts). — Treating the motion to quash as a return and in the nature of a demurrer to the petition, it follows that all of the allegations of the petition which are well pleaded are taken as confessed, so that these things are admitted: That the petitioner had a cause pending in the circuit court; that she was allowed by that court, on due consideration, to prosecute her suit as a poor person under the provisions of section 2261, R. S. 1909; that her cause went to trial before the Hon. [115]*115•George C. Hitclicock and a jury, in the division of the circuit court over which that judge presided; that one A. C. Garber, having been duly appointed thereto, was ■at the time acting as stenographer in that division of the court; that the trial was had and that the testimony produced and all the proceedings at the trial were taken down in shorthand by him as the court stenographer ; that demand having been made on him for, a full copy of his notes written out in English in longhand, he declined to make or furnish it unless his legal fees were first paid; that the circuit judge, on application for an order requiring the court stenographer to write out and deliver to the relator the copy of all the notes of the testimony taken and proceedings had at the trial, had declined to make such order; that the order allowing relator to sue as a poor person had ^ never been revoked.

Counsel for the respective parties have furnished us with exceedingly elaborate briefs and arguments in support of their several positions. We have read and considered them carefully but do not deem it necessary to follow them in detail nor to notice all the ' points raised.

Under the practice as it existed prior to 1881, unless they were so fortunate in their clients or in their own financial conditions as to be able to employ stenographers or shorthand writers to attend them in court at the trial of causes, the testimony was taken down by the attorneys themselves in such manner as they best could; a few of them who were themselves skilled in shorthand-writing, taking it down in that form, and the bill of exceptions was made up from these notes of the testimony and proceedings at the trial, so taken down by the attorney, sometimes helped ■out by the notes which the judge himself may have taken down. Hence the attorneys had in their own hands the matter necessary for making up the bill of exceptions. This in a measure may account for the [116]*116former brevity of bills of exceptions, even of briefs, arguments, and opinions. Tbe controversies that so often arose between counsel and sometimes between counsel and court over' the settlement of the bill of exceptions were the occasion for the enactment of what are now sections 2030, 2031 and 2034 to 2037, then often, now rarely invoked. In the course of time, however, the art of stenography making great advances, and the use of the stenographer in the court being found to be a great saving* of labor for the attorneys as well as for the judge, possibly also tending to accuracy, the office of court stenographer was created. Their first official recognition by law in our State was in 1881. At the session of the General Assembly in that year, by an Act approved March 19’, 1881 (Laws 1881, p. 106), an act was passed authorizing the appointment of stenographic reporters in courts exercising criminal jurisdiction in eases of felonies in cities having a population of more than 100,000 inhabitants. They were made officers of the court, put under oath for the discharge of their duty, required to take down in shorthand and transcribe into legible English for the use of the State when so directed by the judge of the court, the proceedings attendant upon trials in cases' of felonies. The shorthand notes taken down by the reporter were to be filed by him in the office of the clerk of the court and to become part of the record of the court and whenever required by the clerk to do so, the' reporter was directed to transcribe them into longhand and in English, whereupon the clerk was to make out certified copies of the transcript for any person upon payment of the legal fees allowed by law for copies of other records and papers, provided that in cases of appeal and on motions for new trial the transcript of the evidence should be furnished to the defendant upon order of the court without cost to the defendant. Under this act the court stenographer received a monthly salary of $150 and as will be noticed did not receive [117]*117any fees for transcribing the notes or furnishing copies- thereof to any person, fees for copies being collected by the clerk, he collecting the fees for them as in case of making copies of other records, the defendant being exempt from payment of any fees in cases of felonies. This act is substantially carried into our present revision of 1909, as article 5, chapter 131, with some changes not necessary now to be noted or pertinent to the consideration of this case. It was amended in 1907 by an act approved March 19th (Laws 1907, p. 440), which added to the end of the section the provision that when it appeared to the satisfaction of the court that the defendant was unable to pay the costs of the transcript for the purpose of taking the appeal, the stenographer should be allowed for making the transcript the sum of fifteen cents per folio of one hundred words for each transcript so furnished, and that when the court shall be satisfied that the defendant is unable to pay for making such transcript, the same shall be taxed as costs in the case against the State or county as may be proper.

The first law authorizing the appointment of stenographers in civil causes in the civil courts, was an Act approved March 31, 1887 (see Acts 1887, p. 145). That act was confined to courts in cities and counties having a population of 350,000 inhabitants or more. With amendments not necessary to be noted here that act is substantially article 1, chapter 113, Revised Statr utes 1909. What is now article 2 of this chapter 113, first appears in the revision of 1889, as article 2, chapter 153. Article 3 of chapter 113, supra, was adopted in 1883 (see Laws 1883, p. 59), what is now section 11249 being added by the act of March 15, 1887 (Acts 1887, p. 160). With the recognition by our laws of a stenographer as an officer of the court, the whole matter of preparing hills of exceptions has been changed. Now bills of exceptions are made up from the notes of the court stenographer, written out in longhand by [118]*118him and embodied in tbe bill of exceptions, which, when signed by the judge and filed, become a part of the record of the conrt in that canse. Instead, therefore, of the attorney relying upon his own notes in making up the bill of exceptions as in the old. days and under the former practice, he almost necessarily must rely upon, in fact does rely upon, these transcribed notes of the court stenographer.

The first section of article 1, chapter 113, supra, section 11,231, Revised Statutes 1909, provides that “for the purpose of expediting the public business and ^preserving an accurate report of proceedings in the trial of causes without expensive delays, the judge of the circuit court, or when said court consists of more than one judge, then the judge of each division thereof, .. . is authorized to appoint one official stenographer for such court or division.

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Bluebook (online)
153 S.W. 546, 171 Mo. App. 109, 1913 Mo. App. LEXIS 595, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-ex-rel-larue-v-hitchcock-moctapp-1913.