Case ID: mich_9/html/0148-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Manning J.:", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Roswell Enos v. John E. Sutherland and Another.
    A decree in Chancery which consists in part of a reference to a commissioner to take an account between the parties, is not a final decree, and an appeal cannot be taken therefrom to the Supreme Court.
    The practice of making such decrees final in form, in anticipation of the commissioner’s report, is objectionable, and should be discontinued.
    
      Submitted January 16th.
    
    
      Decided January 22d.
    
    Appeal in chancery from Berrien Circuit.
    The hill was filed to redeem certain premises alleged to have been conveyed to defendants in mortgage. The decree adjudged the land to he held by defendants in mortgage, g ordered a reference to a Circuit Court Commissioner to take an account of the amount due defendants, and of the waste committed and improvements made by them on the premises, and if a balance was found due defendants, directed payment thereof by complainant within three months after confirmation of the Commissioner’s report, and that in default of such payment, the premises be sold to satisfy the same. Defendants appealed.
    
      F. Muzzy, for complainant.
    
      F. A. Winslow, for defendants.
   Manning J.:

The appeal in this case, which was submitted on briefs, must be dismissed for want of jurisdiction, as the decree appealed from is not a final decree. It consists, in part, of a reference to a Circuit Court Commissioner to take an account of what is due to defendants, &c. This part of the decree is interlocutory, and the action and report of the Commissioner on the matters referred to him must be had before a final decree can be made. It also contains (a practice very objectionable, and one that should be discontinued,) what in form is a final decree, in anticipation of the Commissioner’s report. But this part of the decree can have no effect whatever, or be regarded as final until the Commissioner’s report is made and confirmed. The policy of the statute in only allowing appeals from final decrees, isp that the whole mase shall be reviewed in this court at one time, and not in detached parts at different times, thereby lengthening litig-ation.

What are and what are not final decrees thatjmay be appealed from, was considered by this court in Caswell v. Comstock, 6 Mich. 391, in which an appeal from a decree similar to the present was dismissed.

Appeal dismissed without costs to either party.

The other Justices concurred.