Boogher v. Insurance Company/Opinion of the Court

It is, to say the least, doubtful whether cases tried in the circuit courts by a referee, in States where such a practice exists, can be reviewed here. While, since the act of 1872, c. 255 (17 Stat. 196, now sect. 914, Rev. Stat.), the practice, pleadings, and forms and modes of proceedings in civil causes, other than equity and admiralty causes, in the circuit and district courts, must conform, as near as may be, to the practice, pleadings, and forms and modes of proceeding existing at the time in like causes in the courts of record of the State within which such circuit or district courts are held, the review of a case in this court is regulated by the acts of Congress and not by the laws of the States. This was decided in United States v. King (7 How. 833), where the precise question arose under the act of 1824, c. 181, regulating the practice of the courts of the United States in the district of Louisiana. 4 Stat. 62. The Seventh Amendment to the Constitution provides that 'no fact tried by a jury shall be otherwise re-examined in any court of the United States, than according to the rules of the common law.' The Judiciary Act of 1789, c. 20, sect. 12 (1 Stat. 80), provided that the trial of issues of fact in the circuit courts should in all suits, except those of equity and of admiralty and maritime jurisdiction, be by jury; but it has always been held that if the parties waived a jury a judgment after trial by the court would not be erroneous. Kearney v. Case, 12 Wall. 275. Such a judgment, however, would not be reviewable here, because, as was said by Mr. Chief Justice Taney, in Campbell v. Boyreau (21 How. 223), 'if, by agreement of parties, the questions of fact in dispute are submitted for decision to the judge upon the evidence, he does not exercise judicial authority in deciding, but acts rather in the character of an arbitrator. . . . And as this court cannot regard facts found by the judge as having been judicially determined in the court below, there are no facts before us upon which questions of law may legally and judicially have arisen in the inferior court, and no questions, therefore, open to our revision as an appellate tribunal.' To get rid of this difficulty and give parties the right of review here, if they submitted their issues to a trial by the court, the act of 1865, c. 86, sect. 4 (13 Stat. 501; Rev. Stat., sects. 649, 700), was passed. In this way it was provided that issues of fact in civil cases in the Circuit Court might be tried and determined by the court, without the intervention of a jury, 'whenever the parties, or their attorneys of record, file with the clerk a stipulation in writing waiving a jury. The finding of the court upon the facts. . . shall have the same effect as the verdict of a jury.' Provision was also made for presenting for review here by bill of exceptions the rulings of the court in the progress of the trial, and, when the finding was special, for extending the review to the determination of the sufficiency of the facts found to support the judgment.

The doubt we have is whether the act of 1872 enlarged the existing modes of subjecting cases to review here. There is no express provision of that kind, and on its face the act is confined to the practice, pleadings, and modes of proceedings in the circuit and district courts. Any allusion to a review here seems to have been studiously avoided. The act of 1865 was not repealed. On the contrary, that act, as well as the one of 1872, was brought into the Revised Statutes, and it is now, as sect. 700, the only statute which provides for a review here of cases where an issue of fact in a civil cause has been tried in the Circuit Court otherwise than by a jury.

This objection was not raised in the argument, and its final determination may perhaps with propriety be postponed, as, if the trial before the referee is treated as a trial by the court, we think the judgment must be affirmed. In Kearney v. Case (supra), it was held that unless there was a written stipulation of the waiver of a jury filed with the clerk, there could be no review here of a case tried by the court. Such a stipulation in writing is a prerequisite to our right to re-examine. We said, however, in that case (p. 283), if it affirmatively appeared in any part of the record proper that such a writing was made and filed by the parties, we might take jurisdiction, even though the stipulation itself, or a copy of it, should not be sent up with the transcript.

It nowhere expressly appears in this case that a stipulation was filed, but inasmuch as an action of this kind could not, upder the Practice Act of Missouri, be referred without the written consent of the parties, and this was referred by consent, we think we must assume that a consent was given in shch form as to authorize what was done under it. The withdrawal of a juror after the trial was begun and the consent to a reference necessarily implied a waiver of a jury; and as this consent to be available must have been in writing, it follows that the waiver which flowed from the consent was also in writing. We think, therefore, it sufficiently appears that the stipulation which the act of Congress requires was entered into.

We have often held that the act of 1865 (sects. 649, 700, Rev. Stat.) does not permit us to consider the effect of the evidence in the case, but only to determine whether the facts found on the trial below are sufficient to support the judgment, and to pass on the rulings of the court in the progress of the trial presented by a bill of exceptions. For all the purposes of our review the facts as found and stated by the court below are conclusive. The Abbotsford, 98 U.S. 440, and the cases there cited. Neither can we consider this case unless the facts found by the referee, when confirmed by the court, are treated as the finding of the court. In that way alone can it with propriety be said that the facts have been determined judicially by the court, so as to be made the foundation of a review here of the questions of law properly raised on them in the record.

Upon the facts as found and reported there can be no doubt of the correctness of the judgment. Indeed, no complaint is made, by an assignment of error or otherwise, on that account. This brings us to a consideration of the bill of exceptions, and the only exceptions which we there find to the rulings of the court are: 1, To the overruling of the objections to the referee's report; and, 2, to the order overruling the motion for a new trial. We have many times decided that the rulings of the circuit courts on motions for a new trial are not reviewable here on writ of error. Railway Company v. Twombly, 100 U.S. 78. The whole case, therefore, turns on the exception to the overruling of the objections to the report. This exception is a general one, to the single order overruling the twenty-two specific objections as a whole. We have uniformly held that 'if a series of propositions is embodied in instructions (to the jury), and the instructions are excepted to in a mass, if any one of the propositions is correct the exception must be overruled.' Johnston v. Jones, 1 Black, 209; Rogers v. The Marshal, 1 Wall. 644; Harvey v. Tyler, 2 id. 328; Lincoln v. Claflin, 7 id. 132; Beaver v. Taylor, 93 U.S. 46. The same rule should be applied to cases of this kind. Here are, so to speak, a series of propositions in respect to the report of the referee. They were overruled and excepted to in a mass. If one of the propositions was correct, therefore, the exception will not be good. The party should, by his exception, direct the attention of the court to the specific proposition or propositions on which he relies, and separate it or them from the rest.

Among the objections to the report included in the general exception are many relating to the sufficiency of the evidence to support the findings. These cannot be re-examined here. But if we consider the action of the court on the objections to the sufficiency of the evidence as not included in the general exception, the difficulty is not removed, because the five remaining objections embrace separate matters. Some of them are confessedly not well taken, and have not been mentioned here, either in the argument or assignment of errors. Only one is relied on, and that the eighth, which is to the effect that the referee erred in finding that the special plea of release had not been sustained. This, taken in connection with the pleadings, raises the question whether the legal effect of the second agreement between the parties, which was in writing and set forth in the complaint, was to cancel and discharge the bond sued on. We have no hesitation in saying that it did not. The bond was not one of the agreements which that instrument abrogated.

This disposes of the case, and leads to an affirmance of the judgment.

Judgment affirmed.