Court Opinion

ID: 9825324
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 12:36:46.382615+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:40:41.855882
License: Public Domain

On Rehearing.
We think that the record referred - to in section 8570, Code, should not be limited to the permanent final record made by the clerk, or judgment entry, but should include any writing which is a part of the orderly proceedings in the cause, such as prescribed by law, and thereby becomes record evidence of consent. The word “record” *629.should be interpreted according to the purpose intended to be accomplished. In this section the purpose is very much the same as that of rule 14, Circuit Court, Code, p. 900. Agreements stated verbally in open 'court have been held to satisfy that rule. Prestwood v. Watson, 111 Ala. 604, 20 So. 600; Samuels v. Scott, 212 Ala. 679, 106 So. 848.
But it is not sufficient to satisfy section 8570, Code, unless it is made to appear in some part of the written proceedings, as in the reporter’s notes, the court’s bench notes, bill of exceptions, judgment entry, and the like. Many matters are declared to be of record which do not appear on the minutes •or final record, and are so for some purposes and not for others. The court reporter’s notes are such. Section 6734, Code; Ala. West. R. R. Co. v. Downey, 177 Ala. 612, 58 So. 918. Likewise a bill of exceptions is so regarded. Section 6432, Code.
Appellant’s counsel also complain that we did not duly consider the evidence of a want of knowledge by them of the petition and order in respect to the employment of •counsel. But the general rule, no doubt well known to counsel for appellant, is that, when a party is properly brought into court, he is chargeable with notice of all subsequent steps taken in the cause down to and including the judgment, although he may not appear and has no actual knowledge of them (unless of course, notice is required by law). 46 C. J. 548, 549; Sov. Camp, W. O. W., v. Gay, 20 Ala. App. 650, 104 So. 895, certiorari granted on other grounds 213 Ala. 5, 104 So. 898. It •does not therefore lie in the right of defendant or his counsel to assert a want of actual knowledge of the petition to employ counsel and the order on it.
The order of the court on demurrer to the complaint recites that the defendant demurred to the complaint. The demurrer is then submitted and passed upon. Though the •demurrer had previously been filed, it was afterwards submitted, which means that action thereon was invited by defendant. This was an invitation by defendant to the court shown by the record that it shall then hear and determine the demurrer. When the record thus shows that action was invited by defendant, it thereby appears affirmatively that there was consent that the judge presiding shall hear and pass upon the demurrer. If a party invites action, he cannot deny that he so consented, in the absence of objection on that ground. If he consented, he cannot complain.
There are recitals in different parts of the record showing that defendant appeared and proceeded to present evidence and raise questions for the consideration of the court, all of which show a manifest purpose to have the presiding judge rule on the questions thus presented. The record therefore shows a consent as the necessary meaning of its recitals.
As we understand the argument of counsel in respect to the absence of .proof of actual knowledge by defendant of the accident to avoid the necessity of the statutory notice, it did not relate so much to a want of knowledge of the fact that plaintiff was taken sick in the course of his employment in a way which might have been accidental and growing out of it, for the circumstances attending his attack were known to defendant’s foreman in the course of his employment, but they contend that they had no knowledge that he had suffered a heat prostration. But if in fact he did suffer an attack growing out of and in the course of his employment, and this was known by defendant’s foreman, though the doctors for defendant who examined him immediately afterwards failed to recognize it as heat prostration, their failure to do so does not show a want of evidence of knowledge required by law, if the court finds that the symptoms which plaintiff manifested were such as to be sufficient to impart that knowledge to them. It is knowledge of the facts and occurrences, and that the employee was thereby injured, which is important, and not the diagnosis of the doctors predicated on those occurrences and his symptoms. If plaintiff in fact had heat prostration due to such accidental causes, defendant’s doctors knew enough of his condition by their physical examination of him to make that diagnosis, and therefore are chargeable with such knowledge, though they thought, and still think, that it was not heat prostration. Sloss-Sheffield Steel & Iron Co. v. Keefe, 217 Ala. 409, 116 So. 424; Am. Radiator Co. v. Andino, 217 Ala. 424, 116 So. 121.
The only two points made by counsel for appellant on this application have been here treated in the manner in which we view them, and adversely to their contention.
The application is overruled.
ANDERSON, O. J„ and GARDNER and BOULDIN, JJ., concur.