Blanchard v. Putnam/Dissent Swayne

Mr.Justice SWAYNE, with whom concurred GRIER and MILLER, JJ., dissenting.

I am unable to concur in the conclusion reached by the majority of my brethren, and will state briefly the grounds of my dissent.

The judgment is reversed, because no notice of the special matters which were proved to the jury is found in the record. If a sufficient notice had been given to the plaintiffs, according to the statute, the testimony was unquestionably proper to be received. It is shown by the bill of exceptions, that the admission of the evidence was objected to, but upon what ground, except as to one item mentioned hereafter, does not appear. The objection may have had reference to several considerations other than the want of notice. The case was tried in all respects as if no such defect existed. If due notice had not been given, and that fact had been brought to the attention of the learned district judge who tried the case, it cannot be doubted that he would at once have excluded the evidence, or have admitted it only after the defect had been properly supplied. It nowhere appears in the case that such an objection was made in the court below. A series of instructions were asked by the plaintiff's counsel, and refused by the court; neither of them has any reference to this point. The court was not asked to rule out the evidence, nor to direct the jury to disregard it. The point was not made in this court by the counsel for the plaintiffs in error. Other errors were strenuously insisted upon, but nothing was said upon this subject. Other objections to the admission of the testimony excepted to in the court below were fully discussed here, but there was entire silence as to the want of notice. The discovery that there is no notice in the record, was made after the cause had been argued and submitted to this court, and the objection does not now come from the plaintiffs in error. It is not of a jurisdictional character.

Upon a careful examination of the record, it seems to me doubtful whether any of the testimony in question required a notice to authorize its introduction, except that of Mitchell, which was objected to upon a distinct and different ground. But, conceding this to be otherwise, under the circumstances, I think these propositions apply:

1. We are bound to presume that a proper notice was before the court below. This suggestion derives additional weight from the fact that the statute requires the notice to be given to the plaintiff, and does not prescribe that it shall be filed in the clerk's office, or made part of the record. In some of the circuits the practice has been heretofore simply to produce and prove it at the trial.

2. If there were no such notice, it was waived by the plaintiffs in error, and they are concluded by their conduct.

3. The objection not having been made in the court below, according to the settled rule and practice of this court, it can not be made here.

4. The plaintiffs in error not having made the objection, this court ought not to make and enforce it for them. They have not suffered, and do not complain. The interests of justice do not require such vicarious and voluntary action on the part of this court. The counsel for the defendant in error has had no notice and no opportunity to be heard. I think, therefore, that the judgment ought not to be reversed.