Refer

1. Is used in a technical sense, as meaning to send an issue or question arising in a cause to be tried or examined by a person or persons specially designated for that duty. Referee: a person to whom an issue or question arising in a cause has been specially sent for trial or examination. Reference: refei Ting; sending an issue or question to be tried or examined by a selected person instead of by judge or jury; and any matter so sent out of court-room for decision is said to be referred. Taking these words in their strict, guished from arbitration, in that the latter word imports submission of a controversy without any lawsuit having been brought, while reference imports a lawsuit pending, and an issue framed or question raised which (and not the controversy itself) is sent out. Thus, arbitration is resorted to instead of any judicial proceeding; while reference is one mode of decision employed in the course of a judicial proceeding. And refei-ence is distinguished from hearing or trial, in that these are the ordinary modes of deciding issues and questions in and by the courts, with aid of juries when proper; while reference is an employment of non-judicial persons — individuals not integral parts of the court — for the decision of particular matters inconvenient to be heard in actual court. Reference has been long and extensively in use in the proceedings in a suit in equity, for a great variety of matters which frequently arise, and would take up too much of the time of the court, if brought before it for decision; and such matters are, therefore, referred to the masters of the respective courts, or to special referees, to be inquired into by them. This use of the sy.stem was more common in respect to incidental questions, examination of witnesses, taking accounts, computing sums due, and the like, than to the determination of the issue or main question as to the rights of the parties. In modern practice of the commonlaw courts, this system has been gradually but widely brought into use; and when a cause or action involves matters of account, or other intricate details, which require minute examination, and for that reason are not convenient to be brought before a jury, it is not unusual to refer these to the decision of an individual, or sometimes three individuals, believed to be disinterested, and to be specially qualified, who may investigate them, and report either a decision or the proofs, and an opinion upon them, to the court; and, in such a case, the cause is said to be referred. By the codes of reformed procedure extended beyond the equity practice of refei Ting questions to obtain informal tion or an advisory opinion from the master, and embraces a submission of the whole issue for a decision. As a general rule, under these codes, the issue may, by consent of parties, or when it will involve the examination of a long account (this class of issues not being deemed within the constitutional right to jury trial), be referred; and the referee decides both questions of law and of fact, and upon his report judgment is entered directly, without need of a confinnation; and this judgment is appealable much as is the judgment of the court upon a verdict. The rulings of the referee on questions of evidence, and his findings on matters of law, are revised, on exceptions, very much as those of the judge made on a jury trial maybe; and his findings of fact stand, in the court of appellate jurisdiction, very much as the verdict of a jury. In many jurisdictions, referees are selected for each cause as it comes up on motion for reference, by the agreement of parties or by the judge granting the order. In some, — as in the English courts, — individuals are designated to serve as referees, as the masters in chancery were, under equity practice, appointed. These are called official or standing referees. For their duties and powers under the judicature acts, see act of 1875, sched. 1, ord. 36, rules 30-34. 2. In conveyancing, pleading, &c., to refer is to insert words directing the i-eader's attention to another part of the instrument, or to some other writing or book; and a reference is a clause or phrase introduced for this purpose.