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2 Alaska 1

Woods v. Beaton

Alaska District Court

Decided January 15, 1903

Alaska District Court · decided 1903-01-15

The motion for a new trial in this case was made on November 5, 1901, before Judge Wickersham, and was by him heard upon all the records, papers, proceedings, and files in the case and the affidavit of C. S. Hannum, Esq. On December 14, 1901, Judge Wickersham filed an opinion (1 Alaska, 344), wherein he left the case undetermined, for the reason that Judge Noyes was then still in office, and possibly might return to Nome during the time limited for perfecting the appeal to…

Relies on Malony v. Adsit · Mussina v. Cavazos · Borrowscale v. Bosworth

Decided 1903-01-15

MOORE, District Judge.

¶1Upon this state of facts the court retained its jurisdiction of the judgment by its last order of extension of time, made June 14, 1901, the extension reaching into the next term. Henrichsen v. Smith (Or.) 44 Pac. 496. It appears from the records and affidavits of Milroy and Hannum that the failure to have the bill of exceptions duly settled was in the first instance due to Judge Noyes’ refusal to consider the bill from lack of time so to do, and afterwards to his failure to return to Nome. That it was not in the power of Judge Wickersham, his successor, to settle the bill of exceptions, has been abundantly established by the highest courts of the United States and of Oregon.

¶2In the case of Malony v. Adsit, 175 U. S. 284, 20 Sup. Ct. 115, 44 L. Ed. 163, carried from the District Court of Alaska to the Supreme Court of the United States, Judge Delaney in the lower court tried the case, but relinquished his office without signing the bill, and his successor signed the bill. Judge Shiras, for the Supreme Court, said that, “No bill of exceptions can be deemed sufficiently authenticated unless signed by the judge who sat at the trial, or by the presiding judge if more than- one sat.” In the course of, the same opinion the-court cites Mussina v. Cavazos, 6 Wall. 355—363, 18 L. Ed. 810, Borrowscale v. Bosworth, 98 Mass. 34, and several English cases, as authority for the proposition therein decided that “the failure or omission of the judge who tried the case to sign a bill of exceptions could not be supplied by agreement of the parties, but that the only remedy was to be found in a motion for a new trial.”

¶3*4To the same purport is the decision of the Supreme Court of Oregon in Henrichsen v. Smith, 44 Pac. 496. See, also, 3 Pleading & Practice, 488, wherein are cited many other cases. The court therefore deems itself fully warranted in granting to the plaintiff the remedy the law plainly gives-her, and will vacate the judgment and award a new trial.

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