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173 F.2d 565

Docket No. 118, Docket No. 21161.

Broffe v. Horton

Second Circuit Court of Appeals

Decided March 23, 1949.

Second Circuit Court of Appeals · decided 1949-03-23

2 counsel of record

Relies on Land Oberoesterreich v. Gude · Berthold v. Burton · Jennings v. Burton

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Opinion by (per_curiam) · Decided 1949-03-23

How this case has been cited

Cited by 7 later decisions — most recently March 1975

5 federal appellate · 1 district ·

201949195019601970decided

Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

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¶1Walsh & Levine, of New York City (William F. Walsh and James Harte Lev-enson, both of New York City, of counsel), for plaintiff-respondent.

¶2Satterlee, Warfield & Stephens, of New York City (James F. Dwyer and Bennett Frankel, both of New York City, of counsel), for defendant-appellant.

¶3Before L. HAND, Chief Judge and CHASE and FRANK, Circuit Judges.

¶4PER CURIAM.

¶5The rules of the Supreme Court have provided for more than a hundred years1 *that in case of reversal, costs shall be allowed “unless otherwise ordered by the court.” That is now embodied in Rule 32(3) of the rules of that court, 28 U.S. C.A.; and our own Rule 30(2) is even stronger: “costs, so far as taxable, shall be allowed as of course to the prevailing party unless the course otherwise directs.” No doubt that allows exceptions, but from the beginning in 1891 it has been the unbroken practice at least in this circuit, so far as we know, or can learn from the clerk’s office, never to allow “costs to abide the event” in- case of reversal;2 and we gather that that is the rule elsewhere.3*566The only exception we can find is United States v. Beaty4 in which in 1847 Justice Daniel and Johnson, D. J., awarded “costs [to] abide the event,” because “it was the error of the court” which had rendered a new trial necessary.

¶6We regard our local practice as an almost conclusive gloss upon the rule; nor can we see that it makes any difference whether the error was one of the court or not, provided it is the appellee who has induced the court to make it; for, as between him and the appellant, justice demands that he, who has been the cause of the expense, shall pay for it. It is never wise to lay down a draconic rule, and conceivably there may be situations in which the appellee has been as much the victim of the court as the appellant; but they will be exceedingly rare. At any rate, the case at bar is not one of these. It is true that the judge prepared his own findings, but there was nothing in the record to support a finding that Horton intended to give part of the shares to his wife before Broffe had committed himself to the sale.

¶7Petition denied.

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