28 Md. 11

Waters v. Waters

Decided December 20, 1867

Court of Appeals of Maryland · decided 1867-12-20

Appeals from the Orphans’ Court of Montgomery County. A caveat to the will of Tilghman "Waters, was filed in the Orphans’ Court of Montgomery county; plenary proceedings were ordered; the petition of the caveators (now appellants) and the answer of the caveatees (now appellees) thereto, were filed; and issues were sent by the Orphans’ Court to the Circuit Court for Montgomery county, and removed from thence, at the instance of the caveators to the Circuit Court for Howard county, and from thence at the suggestion of one of the caveatees to the Circuit Court for Anne Arundel county for trial. The case was tried at the October term, 1865, of said Court. Upon the first trial, the jury found on the first issue, that the paper purporting to be the will of Tilghman Waters, was executed by him when he was not of a sound and disposing mind, and capable of making a valid deed or contract; on the second issue, that the said paper was executed and attested as required by law to pass title to real estate; on the third issue, that the said paper was not executed by Tilghman Waters under the influence of suggestions and importunities, when his mind from its diseased or enfeebled state was unable to resist the same; on the fourth issue, that the said paper and the execution thereof, was the free and voluntary act of Tilghman Waters, to which he was induced with a knowledge of its contents, and without the exercise of a dominion and influence by any person or persons, which prevented in his then condition, the exercise of a sound discretion ; on the fifth issue, that the execution of said paper was not procured by undue influence, fraudulent devices, importunities, misrepresentations and deceits practised on the said Tilghman Waters; on the sixth issue, that the execution of said paper was not procured by the exercise of an undue influence, dominion or control, obtained over the said Tilghman Waters, by his wife, Ellen M, Waters, and which in his then condition he was unable to resist; and on the seventh and last issue, that the said Tilghman Waters was not at any time subsequent to the execution of said paper writing, desirous of altering or cancelling the same, and was not prevented from so doing by management, fraud, undue influence or importunities. A motion was thereupon made by the caveatees for a new trial, upon the grounds, that the verdict was against the evidence and the weight of evidence; and of inconsistency between the issue found for the caveators and those found for the caveatees. The motion for a new trial was granted. An appeal was taken by the caveators from the order granting a new trial, and the appeal was dismissed by this Court. (See Waters vs. Waters, 25 Md. Hep., —.) Upon a second trial, the jury found a verdict upon all the issues in favor of the caveatees. The record, with a certificate of the Judge, (Mag ruder) certifying to the finding of the jury on the last trial, was transmitted to the Orphans’ Court of Montgomery county. The caveators then filed their petition in said Court, alleging that the record so transmitted was not properly certified, in this, that the Judge of the Circuit Court for Anne Arundel county had not ordered a full transcript of all the proceedings in said case to be certified, and that it did not appear from the certificate of the said Judge, how the case originating in the Orphans’ Court of Montgomery county, came into the Circuit Court for Anne Arundel county for trial, or by what authority the Judge of that Court certified in the case to said Orphans’ Court; and praying that the record should be remanded to the Circuit Court for Anne Arundel county for amendment, so that the whole and complete record in the case should be brought before the Orphans’ Court. The Orphans’ Court, by order of the 7th May, 1867, refused the prayer of the petitioners, and from this order the first appeal is taken. The second appeal is from an order of the said Orphans’ Court, passed on the 18th June, 1867, dismissing the petition of the appellants, filed the 23d April, 1867, and the amended petition, filed 28th May, 1867, without prejudice to the rights of the petitioners, on the final hearing of the cause, and also adjudging that the Court would not proceed to final decree in the cause, (the admission to probate of the will of Tilghman Waters, and granting letters testamentary to the executor,) until the appeal taken from the said order of the 7th May, 1867, should be determined by this Court. The two appeals were argued together.

Key passage — most relied on by later courts

““No principle is better established than that a decision of the Court of Appeals once pronounced in any case is binding upon the court below and upon this Court in the subsequent proceedings in the same case, and cannot be disregarded or called in question. It is the law of the case binding and conclusive upon the parties, not open to question or examination afterwards in the same case.””

quoted by 1 later decision, including Turner v. Housing Authority

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1867-12-20

How this case has been cited

Cited by 20 later decisions — most recently August 2016

20 state decisions

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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Bartol, C. J.,

¶1delivered the opinion of this Court.

¶2These appeals have been argued together, and as they involve the same questions, will be considered and disposed of in the same way.

¶3No principle is better established than that a decision of the Court of Appeals once pronounced in any case is binding upon the Court below and upon this Court in the subsequent proceedings in the same case, and cannot be disregarded or called in question. It is the law of the case binding and conclusive upon the parties, not open to question or examination afterwards in the same case.

¶4If this were not so, controversies would be endless; “ debet finis esse litium,” is the maxim which has been invariably applied by this Court, whenever this question has arisen.

¶5On the former appeal between these parties, decided at October Term, 1866, it was finally adjudged, that the action of the Circuit Court before which the trial of the issues was pending, in setting aside the verdict of the jury and awarding a new trial, was within the exercise of the legal discretion vested in that Court, final in its nature and not subject to examination on appeal, and the appeal was therefore dismissed. The legal effect of that decision was that the ruling of the Circuit Court stood unreversed. The verdict having been set aside and a new trial ordered, the cause stood as if no trial had taken place, and no verdict had been rendered; *23and the verdict of the jury therefore rendered upon the second trial was in contemplation of law the only verdict in the cause, for the government and direction of the Orphans’ Court.

¶6The object of the appellants in the several petitions filed by them in the Orphans’ Court, and contained in the records before ns, seems to bo to re-open before the Orphans’ Court the question of the propriety of granting the new trial, and in that way to have re-examined in the Orphans’ Court, and perhaps in this Court by another appeal, the same questions which were finally determined in the cause upon the former appeal. Such an attempt is wholly inadmissible.

¶7By the petition filed on the sixth day of May, 1867, the appellants ask that the record shall be remanded to the Cireuit Court for two canses:

¶81st. “That the Judge of the Circuit Court has not ordered a full transcript of all the proceedings in the said case to be certified to the Orphans’ Court.”

¶92d. “ That it does not appear from the certificate of the said Judge, how the ease originating in the (Irphans’ Court of Montgomery county, came into the Circuit Court for Anne Arundel county for trial, or by what authority the said Judge certified in the said case to the Orphans’ Court of Montgomery county.”

¶10An inspection of the record furnishes a complete answer to this petition. The transcript sent to the Orphans’ Court contains all the proceedings from the origin of the case in the Orphans’ Court to the final verdict upon the issues rendered in the Circuit Court for Anne Arundel county, showing the successive removals of the cause first from the Circuit Court for Montgomery county to which the issues liad been sent, to the Circuit Court for Howard county, and thence to the Circuit Court for Anne Arundel county, where they were finally passed upon by the jury. Every tiling that took place in the progress of the cause is shown by the transcript, including the first verdict rendered by the jury, the action of the Circuit Court in setting it aside and granting the motion for a new trial, the appeal therefrom and the judgment of the Court of Appeals thereon, the second trial, and the final verdict of the *24jury. This transcript was sent by the clerk of the Circuit Court prefaced with a statement that what followed was “ in the record of the proceedings of the same Court,” and the conclusion verified by the certificate of the clerk and the seal of the Court.' There is no order of the Judge requiring the transmission of the record to the Orphans’ Court ; but this is not necessary. The act of the clerk in that behalf is the act of the Court, and is a compliance with the law, furnishing to the Orphans’ Court in a complete and legal form the grounds for their fixture action.

(Decided 20th December, 1867.)

¶11Appended to the record is a certificate of the Judge of the Circuit Court which sets forth the findings of the jury upon the several issues. This certificate is in exact conformity with the truth; no discrepancy whatever is found between it and the verdict itself as set forth in the record; and is therefore not obnoxious to any objection. It certifies only the last verdict, making no mention of the first; to have done so would have been improper, as the first verdict had been annulled and set aside, and to have certified it as the finding of the jury would have had a tendency to mislead the Orphans’ Court, who could not under any circumstances lawfully consider it, or be governed by it. An order will be passed aifirming the order of the Orphans’ Court passed on the 7th day of May, 1867, and dismissing the petition of the appellants filed on the 6th day of May, 1867.

¶12And for the reasons already assigned the order of the Orphans’ Court passed on the 18th day of June, 1867, will be affirmed, and the appellants’ petition filed on the 23d day of April, 1867, and the amended petitions filed on the 21st day of May, 1867, on the 28th day of May, 1867, and the motion of the 18th day of June, 1867, will be overruled and dismissed.

¶13In these appeals the costs in both Courts will be awarded to the appellees, and the cause will be remanded to the Orphans’ Court for further proceedings in conformity with this opinion.

¶14 Orders affirmed and eause remanded.