Case Name: CRAMER v. CRAMER
Court: Ohio Court of Appeals
Jurisdiction: Ohio
Decision Date: 1938-11-04
Citations: 28 Ohio Law Abs. 86
Docket Number: No 758
Parties: CRAMER v CRAMER
Judges: HAMILTON, J, concurs.
Reporter: The Ohio Law Abstract
Volume: 28
Pages: 86–88

Head Matter:
CRAMER v CRAMER
Ohio Appeals, 1st Dist, Butler Co
No 758.
Decided Nov 4, 1938
Foster Brate, Hamilton, for appellant.
John P. Rogers, Hamilton, for appellees.

Opinion:
OPINION
By ROSS, PJ.
This was an action for money only filed in the Court of Common Pleas of Butler County. The case was tried to the court without a jury. On July 25th, 1938, the court entered its judgment in favor of the plaintiff against Owen Cramer and dismissed the other two defendants. On the same day a motion for a new trial was filed and on the same day overruled. No judgment or final order was made in the entry overruling the motion for new trial or thereafter. On the same day the plaintiff gave notice of appeal on law and fact from the judgment. No bond was given.
Motion to dismiss the appeal • has been made.
The motion must be granted. First, because there is no- final order for the court to review. Boedker v Warren E. Richards Co., 124 Oh St 12. Second, because the action considered is one at law. It is not a chancery case and not appealable on law and fact. Third, no bond having been given, no appeal on law and fact was taken, effected. or perfected.
Sec 12223-6, GC, provides that no appeal on law and fact shall be effective as an appeal upon questions of law and fact unless and until a bond is given.
More definite, distinct, and unambiguous language could not have been usen to announce the intention of the Legislature, that unless a bond was given, there was no appeal on law and fact.
This section further imposes a limitation upon the time for filing such bond identical with that of the notice of appeal.
Furthermore, the case aside from the absence of any final order cannot be considered as an appeal upon law alone, since it was admitted in open court that a bill of exceptions is necessary to develop the assignments of error upon which reliance is placed, and no bill of exceptions was filed in the Common Pleas Court within forty days from the overruling of the motion for new trial, as is required by §11564, GC.
The case cannot be remanded for a bill of exceptions under the provisions of §11564, GC, because no appeal on law and fact was taken. It is manifest that the bond is a jurisdictional requisite, first, because it is required, as previously noted, to make an appeal on law and fact effective, and, second, because in §12223-4, GC, it is stated that "no step required to be taken subsequent to the perfection of the appeal shall be deemed to be jurisdictional." It will be noted that the giving of the bond under the language used can not be a step subsequent as it is necessarily coincident with the perfecting of the appeal on law and fact. The remand for a bill of exceptions Is predicated upon — is based entirely upon —the fact that an appeal on law and fact has been taken — perfected—effected.
The language of §12223-4, GC, that the appeal shall be deemed to be perfected when written notice of appeal shall be filed with the lower court, cannot be said to control all interpretation and construction of the entire Appellate Code in total disregard of every other section. The sections were enacted as one Code. They mus. be read and construed together. To say that the notice of appeal alone is jurisdictional in a law and fact case is to render the language oí the other sections noted completely valueless and of no effect.
The language of §12223-4, GC, evidently applies to appeals on law only, and its effect is modified in appeals on law and fact by sections appropriate to such latter appeals.
• This is a reasonable construction of the entire Code. To permit an appellant in such a case as this — manifestly one of law— to file merely a notice of appeal without a suggestion of a bond, and then after months have elapsed request the court for a remand for a bill is to put an iniquitous premium upon vexatious delay and to produce an injustice which the Code was designed to prevent.
For the reasons given, the motion to dismiss is granted.
HAMILTON, J, concurs.
MATTHEWS, J, concurs in separate opinion.