Opinion ID: 2277153
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Practice Since 1820

Text: In 1824, when jury trials were eliminated in FED cases before the justice of the peace, a party aggrieved could take an appeal from the final judgment of the justice of the peace to the Court of Common Pleas. [9] An appeal to Common Pleas meant a trial de novo with a jury. [10] Thus, a jury trial was still available in an FED action, but at the next level of the court system. [11] A legal handbook of 1835, designed to assist justices, lawyers and others in understanding the work of the courts, supports this interpretation of the early statutes. It states that on appeals to the Court of Common Pleas, both parties shall be allowed to offer any evidence upon the trial at the Court of Common Pleas, in the same manner as if the cause had been originally commenced there. J. Perley, The Maine Justice 90 (3rd ed. 1835). The Revised Statutes of 1841 continued to recognize the nature of an appeal as being a trial de novo. They specifically provided that upon an appeal from the justice of the peace to the District Court (which had replaced Common Pleas), the case shall be entered, tried and determined in the district court, in like manner as if it had been commenced there. R.S. ch. 116, § 9 (1841). The Law Court interpreted this to mean: After a final decision is had of the cause before the justice, the appeal will remove the whole case to the District Court, and the same questions may there be raised, as had been before him, and according to the statute, the case may be tried in the same manner as if it had been commenced in that court. Waterville v. Howard, 30 Me. 103, 104 (1849). It is apparent that trial de novo meant a jury trial. As late as 1852 it was an important innovation to propose that a judge could be required to decide a case in place of the jury even when the parties agreed. Report of the Commissioners, appointed by virtue of a resolve in favor of re-organizing the Judicial Courts, House Doc. No. 33 at 8-9, 31st Legis. (1852). The continuing availability of a jury trial in FED actions through the automatic right of appeal is reflected in an 1853 addition to the statutes dealing specifically with the termination of tenancies at will. The statute directs that in an FED action on appeal, the court before which such an appeal may be tried shall direct the jury, if they find for the defendant, to estimate the damages sustained by the defendant and return their verdict therefor. P.L. 1853, ch. 39, § 2. After the District Courts were abolished in 1852, P.L. 1852, ch. 246, § 1, the same FED structure continued except that appeal was taken to the Supreme Judicial Court sitting at nisi prius. R.S. ch. 94, § 8 (1857). When the Superior Courts were added as intermediate courts, first in Cumberland County in 1868, P.L. 1868, ch. 151, and then in Kennebec County in 1878, P.L. 1878, ch. 10, they were given jurisdiction of appeals from Municipal Courts and trial justices (who in 1860 had taken the role of justices of the peace) so far as FED actions were concerned. The statute establishing the Cumberland County Superior Court made clear that jury trials were available on appeal. Specifically, appeals shall be entered by the appellant as in the Supreme Judicial Court, and a jury fee paid by him at the time of entry, and appeals shall be in order for trial at the first term. P.L. 1868, ch. 151, § 6. [12] Under Rule IV, Order of Jury Trials, the 1868 Cumberland County Superior Court Rules listed New entries of appeals from Municipal Courts and Trial Justices as second in priority for jury trials. J. Spaulding, Practice in Civil Actions 599 (1886). Kennebec County did the same in 1878. Id. at 614. The FED statute of 1871 continued to recognize the availability of a jury trial on appeal. Appeals then were taken from trial justices, Municipal Courts and Police Courts to the Supreme Judicial Court sitting at nisi prius. [13] R.S. ch. 94 §§ 3, 8 (1871). Section 9 of that FED statute provided that if the claimant were awarded judgment by a trial justice or the Municipal or Police Court, he could obtain a writ of possession if he provided a bond against the possibility of a contrary verdict on appeal. Then, on the appeal, if the jury find for the defendant, they shall find the damages sustained by him. Id. The Revised Statutes of 1883 continued this arrangement, except that appeals were then available to the Superior Court in Cumberland and Kennebec Counties from trial justices, Municipal or Police Courts. R.S. ch. 94, § 8 (1883). Once again, the legal handbooks confirm this understanding of the statute. Spaulding notes the peculiar practice in New England of an appellate court retrying a cause by jury. Spaulding at 377. In listing the requisites to an appeal, Spaulding states [t]here must be an issue in technical form, or, at least, the pleadings must be in such a form as to present a question of fact, to be tried by a jury, or a question of law to be decided by the court, as upon demurrer. Id. at 384 (footnotes omitted). Under his heading Proceedings in the Appellate Court he notes that [a]ll such actions are in general tried on the appeal, without any reference to the proceedings in the court below. Id. at 389. Spaulding specifically recognizes the availability of an appeal from the judgment of trial justices in an FED action. Id. at 377 n. (r). [14] No change in this structure occurred under the Revised Statutes of 1903, 1916, 1930, 1944 and 1954 although the names and roles of the various courts continued to change. [15] As late as 1954, the Revised Statutes provided that on appeal the clerk shall enter the appeal in the appellate court where it shall be determined as a new entry. R.S. ch. 111, § 4 (1954). The disappearance of this longstanding right to a jury trial in FED actions appears to have occurred by oversight with the creation of the modern District Court in 1961. P.L. 1961, ch. 386. In establishing the District Court in place of the trial justices and Municipal Courts, and [p]ending promulgation of new rules of procedure by the Supreme Judicial Court, the Legislature provided that [a]ppeals from the District Court shall be heard de novo in the Superior Court. Id. § 7. That was no change. Then the Supreme Judicial Court appointed a District Court Rules Committee to devise the rules for the new court. The Committee did so with certain general policies in mind, one of which required considerable modification of the present practice on appeals to the Superior Court from a municipal court. This policy was that factual decisions of the District Court, on the civil side, should be final unless clearly erroneous. Such finality seems in keeping with the dignity and standing of the newly created system. Southard, Introductory Comment on Maine District Court Rules in Field & McKusick, Maine Civil Practice at 173-74 (1st. ed. Supp.1967), 158 Me. 539, 540 (1962). The Committee drafted Rule 73(a) governing appeals from the District Court to provide: the appeal shall be on questions of law only and shall be determined by the Superior Court without jury on the record on appeal specified in Rule 75. Any findings of fact of the District Court shall not be set aside unless clearly erroneous. Field & McKusick at 198, 158 Me. at 571. To protect jury trial rights generally under this scheme, early removal to the Superior Court (where a jury trial was available) was preserved and made easy, id. at 540but not in FED actions. Removal there was expressly prohibited, Me.D. Civ.R. 80D(i), in order, according to the Advisory Committee, to permit prompt execution. Id. at 579. Jury trial for FED actions was apparently forgotten. This was a dramatic change. No limitation on the scope of appeal had been contained in the previous Municipal Court Civil Rules. Instead, Municipal Court Rule 26, the FED rule, had provided that either party may appeal as in other civil actions.... It was recognized in the reporter's note as incorporating existing statutory law with reference to appeal and recognizance in forcible entry and detainer cases, i.e., appeal for trial de novo. M.Mun.Civ.R. 26(f) and reporter's note, Field & McKusick at 690 (1st. ed.1959). As late as 1970 the academic commentary on the District Court Civil Rules recognized that the statutes of Maine still contemplated a jury trial on an FED appeal from the District Court to the Superior Court. Field, McKusick & Wroth, Maine Civil Practice at 509-10 n. 16 (2d ed.1970). The authors referred to 14 M.R.S.A. § 6009 which, until 1979, provided that on appeal in an FED action if on trial the jury find for the defendant they shall find the damages sustained by him. The commentators described this as a finding by a jury on appeal from a District Court judgment in an action of forcible entry and detainer. They suggested that it was merely a leftover from the days when District Court judgments were reviewable de novo in the Superior Court and considered it superseded by the District Court Civil Rule. Id. Soon the Law Court was treating Superior Court FED decisions as merely those of an intermediate appellate tribunal. See, e.g., Rubin v. Josephson, 478 A.2d 665, 667 n. 2 (Me.1984) (Law Court review of an FED action is confined to the District Court decision. When the Superior Court acts as an intermediate appellate tribunal, we review the initial determination of the adjudicatory body and not the decision of the Superior Court.). Although a properly promulgated rule could have superseded the statutory provision for jury trial on appeal, and although the statute was amended in 1979 to eliminate the reference to jury trial on appeal, P.L. 1979, ch. 172 § 2, neither the rule nor the amended statute could alter the constitutional requirement. Indeed, there is no suggestion in any Advisory Committee notes that the rules ever consciously dealt with the right to jury trial in FED actions. Instead, their purpose was simply to avoid the duplicative trials of the previous system and to give greater authority and respectability to the judgments of the District Court, successor to the Municipal Courts and trial justices.