Source: http://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/320/520
Timestamp: 2014-03-11 01:29:19
Document Index: 355958642

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 6', '§ 6', '§ 11', '§ 11', '§ 230', '§ 1', '§ 230']

HILL v. HAWES. | LII / Legal Information Institute
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320 U.S. 520 (64 S.Ct. 334, 88 L.Ed. 283)
HILL v. HAWES.
Argued: Dec. 6, 1943.
[HTML] See 321 U.S. 801, 64 S.Ct. 515.
This case presents important questions respecting the rule making power of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia touching appeals to that court and the powers of the District Court of the United States for the District of Columbia to vacate its judgments.
'No * * * judgment * * * of the District Court of the United States for the District of Columbia, or of any justice thereof, shall be reviewed by the Court of Appeals, unless the appeal shall be taken within 20 days after the * * * judgment * * * complained of shall have been made or pronounced. * * *'
In the meantime, on June 13, the trial judge ordered the judgment of May 7 vacated 'for the reason that the clerk failed under Rule 77(d) of the Rules of Civil Procedure to serve a notice of the entry of judgment by mail on the plaintiff * * * and to make a note in the docket of the mailing.' The same day the judge signed and filed a second judgment in the same terms as that of May 7, which was duly noted in the docket. The petitioner filed a notice of appeal from this judgment on June 14. The respondent moved to dismiss the appeal as taken out of time. The court below granted the motion and dismissed the appeal.
First. We hold that Rule 10 of the Court of Appeals is within the competence of that court. The court was established by the Act of February 9, 1893,
which, in § 6, empowered it to 'make such rules and regulations as may be necessary and proper for the transaction of the business to be brought before it and for the tiem and method of the entry of appeals.' The Act of July 30, 1894,
amended § 6 to read that the court might make 'such rules and regulations as may be necessary and proper for the transaction of its business and the taking of appeals to said court.' Both of these statutes were later than the Act of March 3, 1891,
which created circuit courts of appeals and provided for appeals to such courts within six months after the entry of judgment. The Judicial Code adopted March 3, 1911,
did not alter or enlarge the provisions of the Act of March 3, 1891, supra.
In Ex parte Dante, 228 U.S. 429, 33 S.Ct. 579, 57 L.Ed. 905, decided April 28, 1913, this court affirmed the validity of Rule 10. This decision necessarily imports that the statute conferring power on the Court of Appeals to set the time for appeal was not superseded by the legislation creating and defining the jurisdiction of circuit courts of appeals. No reference is made to the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia in Sec. 8(c) of the Act of February 13, 1925, which reduced to three months the time within which to take appeals to the circuit courts of appeals.
It is true that Rule 77(d) does not purport to attach any consequence to the failure of the clerk to give the prescribed notice; but we can think of no reason for requiring the notice if counsel in the cause are not entitled to rely upon the requirement that it be given. It may well be that the effect to be given to the rule is that, although the judgment is final for other purposes, it does not become final for the purpose of starting the running of the period for appeal until notice is sent in accordance with the rule. The Federal Rules of Civil Procedure permit the amendment or vacation of a judgment for clerical mistakes or errors arising from oversight or omission and authorize the court to relieve a party from a judgment or order taken against him through his mistake, inadvertence, surprise or excusable neglect. See Rule 60(a)(b). These rules do not in terms apply to the situation here present, as the court below held. But we think it was competent for the trial judge, in the view that the petitioner relied upon the provisions of Rule 77(d) with respect to notice, and in the exercise of a sound discretion, to vacate the former judgment and to enter a new judgment of which notice was sent in compliance with the rules. The term had not expired and the judgment was still within control of the trial judge for such action as was in the interest of justice to a party to the cause.
In the federal courts there is no right to appeal save as it is granted by Congress or a rule of court which is authorized by Congress and has the force of law. See Heike v. United States, 217 U.S. 423, 428, 30 S.Ct. 539, 540, 54 L.Ed. 821; Ex parte Dante, 228 U.S. 429, 432, 33 S.Ct. 579, 580, 57 L.Ed. 905. It is in the public interest, and it is the very purpose of limiting the period for appeal, to set a definite and ascertainable point of time when litigation shall be at an end unless within that time application for appeal has been made; and if it has not, to advise prospective appellees that they are freed of the appellant's demands. Matton Steamboat Company v. Murphy, 319 U.S. 412, 415, 63 S.Ct. 1126, 1128, 87 L.Ed. 1483.
The decisions are numerous and diligence of court and counsel has revealed no exceptions. Credit Company v. Arkansas Central R. Co., 128 U.S. 258, 9 S.Ct. 107, 32 L.Ed. 448, is representative of the unbroken current of authority. There, in dismissing an appeal as untimely the Court, speaking by Mr. Justice Bradley, said at page 261 of 128 U.S., at page 108 of 9 S.Ct., 32 L.Ed. 448: 'The attempt made, in this case, to anticipate the actual time of presenting and filing the appeal, by entering an order nunc pro tunc, does not help the case. When the time for taking an appeal has expired it cannot be arrested or called back by simple order of court. If it could be, the law which limits the time within which an appeal can be taken would be a dead letter.'
At the last term of Court we held that the reentry of its final judgment by a state appellate court, with only formal changes not affecting any matter adjudicated, did not enlarge the time to appeal to this Court. Department of Banking v. Pink, 317 U.S. 264, 63 S.Ct. 233. And at the same term we held that a motion to amend a final judgment would not toll the time for appeal unless the amendments proposed were of substance rather than form, Leishman v. Associated Wholesale Electric Co., 318 U.S. 203, 205, 206, 63 S.Ct. 543, 544,an inquiry which presupposed that reentry of the judgment without formal change could not enlarge the time. To the same effect are Pfister v. Northern Illinois Finance Corp., 317 U.S. 144, 149151, 63 S.Ct. 133, 137, 138; Zimmern v. United States, 298 U.S. 167, 56 S.Ct. 706, 80 L.Ed. 1118. And in Wayne United Gas Co. v. Owens-Illinois Glass Co., 300 U.S. 131, 137, 57 S.Ct. 382, 385, 81 L.Ed. 557, this Court, citing In re Stearns & White Co., 7 Cir., 295 F. 833; Bonner v. Potterf, 10 Cir., 47 F.2d 852, 855; United States v. East, 8 Cir., 80 F.2d 134, 135, declared that where it appears that a rehearing has been granted only for the purpose of extending the time of appeal the appeal must be dismisseda statement equally applicable to the reentry of the judgment solely for that purpose.
76 U.S.App.D.C. 308, 132 F.2d 569.
C. 74, 27 Stat. 434.
C. 172, 28 Stat. 160, D.C.Code 1940, § 11205.
C. 517, § 11, 26 Stat. 826, 829, 28 U.S.C.A. § 230 note.
36 Stat. 1087, 28 U.S.C.A. § 1 et seq.
C. 229, 43 Stat. 936, 940, 28 U.S.C.A. § 230.