Court Opinion

ID: 9725734
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 12:06:59.644682+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:25:19.120250
License: Public Domain

Simmons, C. J.,
dissenting.
The court is concerned with the “summary enforcement” of the statutes by the director. That is not the question presented here.
Here we are concerned with the rights of a licensed driver, their extent under the statutes, and their protection in the courts of this state after the summary proceedings before the director have been exercised. We begin here where the summary proceedings end.
The proceedings before the director are summary. They are ex parte, no witnesses are called, no hearing had, and no opportunity given to the driver to present his contentions. The order of the director becomes as final an order as is the “judgment of a court of general jurisdiction.” § 60-420, R. R. S. 1943. It is difficult to conceive of a more summary proceeding. But that proceeding as such is not an issue here.
For the statute gives a person feeling aggrieved the right of an “appeal.” § 39-7,130, R. S. Supp., 1955; § 60-420, R. R. S. 1943.
And what is the right of appeal? The statute defines it: “The district court shall hear the appeal as in *348equity, and without a jury, and determine anew all questions raised before the director; * * (Emphasis supplied.) § 60-420, R. R. S. 1943.
I am concerned with the impact of this decision on the right of trial on “appeal as in equity” and “anew.” This decision reduces the right of appeal to the limited right of an error proceeding, and restricts that to the limitation as to whether the “records of such director” sustain his final order. Such is not the legislative intent in the plain language of the act.
The court quotes the statute in part, but does not undertake to define the rights which flow from it.
In Commonwealth v. Herzog, 359 Pa. 641, 60 A. 2d 37, the proper official suspended a driver’s license for a statutory cause. He appealed to the court of common pleas and the suspension was affirmed. On further appeal, the Supreme Court reversed and vacated the suspension order. The pertinent provisions of the opinion follow: “It is implicit in the opinion filed by the court below that the primary concern of the hearing judge was whether the action of the Secretary of Revenue was justified by the available evidence in the case. Such an approach to the problem was, of course, contrary to the intent of The Vehicle Code. The relevant provision of the Statute (Sec. 616, 75 PS § 193), as frequently and uniformly construed by this Court, means that the hearing on an appeal to a common pleas court from an order of the Secretary of Revenue suspending an operator’s license is to be de novo: * * * In Commonwealth v. Cole, 350 Pa. 369, 371, 39 A. 2d 361, Mr. Justice Patterson, speaking for this Court, said with respect to existing pertinent decisions, — ‘All of these cases hold that an appeal to the court is not for the purpose of reviewing the evidence taken before the secretary, and his action thereon, but to hear evidence and determine, in the exercise of the court’s sound discretion and in the furtherance of justice, whether the license should be suspended’. Nor was the error of *349the situation offset by the bald statement in the opinion, subsequently filed, that ‘The Court heard the case de novo and at the conclusion of the testimony dismissed the appeal’. That expression was but a pro forma affirmation of the legal requirement in the circumstances which had not been followed in practice as will be seen.
“After treating with the evidence in the case and finding that the defendant was ‘not entirely free of negligence’, the court below dismissed the appeal because of the expressed feeling ‘* * * that the department has not abused the discretion which the law gives them in suspending the operator’s license of any person operating a motor vehicle in an accident resulting fatal to any person * * *’. Yet, the court’s duty in the premises was to determine independently, on the basis of the testimony adduced at the hearing on the appeal, whether the suspension was merited. One of the principal offices of the appeal, in obedience to constitutional requirements, is to furnish a judicial hearing on the merits. In no way does the appeal partake of the nature of a certiorari: see Commonwealth v. Funk, 323 Pa. 390, 397, 186 A. 65. In that case, it was held (p. 399) that the inclusion by the hearing court of testimony taken before the Secretary on the license suspension, merely as a part of the record on the appeal, was error. The offense of the court in the present instance was even greater.” (Emphasis supplied.)
But we need not go afield for decisions construing the Legislature’s meaning and the scope of the trial provided for in the instant case.
In Deshler Broom Factory v. Kinney, 140 Neb. 889, 2 N. W. 2d 332, we had before us provisions of the Nebraska Unemployment Compensation Law.
I quote from that opinion: “On the trial of the case in the district court, the court permitted the introduction of additional and new evidence, to which objection was timely made on the ground that the case, under the *350unemployment compensation act, was required to be heard on the record made before the appeal tribunal. Subsection (h) of section 48-706, Comp. St. Supp. 1939, states in part: ‘In any judicial proceeding under this section, trial de novo shall be had to the judge of such court.’ There is no other language restricting the scope of the investigation to be made by the district court. The district courts of this state are courts of general jurisdiction, and in the absence of specific statutory restriction a provision of statute providing for an appeal to and a trial de novo in the district court contemplates a trial in the commonly accepted sense of that term in a court of general jurisdiction, including the right to produce evidence in the same manner as if the action had originated in the district court.” The syllabus point is: “A trial de novo in a court of general jurisdiction, in the absence of statutory language restricting its scope, means a trial in the commonly accepted sense of that term in such a court.”
In Beecham v. Falstaff Brewing Corp., 150 Neb. 792, 36 N. W. 2d 233, we had before us this language from the same law as it existed at that time: “ ‘In any judicial proceeding under sections 48-638 to 48-640 the court shall consider the matter de novo upon the record.’ ” (Emphasis supplied.) I emphasize the above language because the court seems to place some importance to the “as disclosed by the records” provision of section 39-7,129, R. S. Supp., 1955, in connection with “all questions raised before the director” provision of section 60-420, R. R. S. 1943. Nevertheless in the Beecham case we followed the Deshler Broom Factory case and held: “It follows then that when this matter came before the district court it became the duty of that court to consider and determine the case de novo or in other words to try the case anew.” (Emphasis supplied.) The syllabus point is: “In a hearing in the district court on appeal from a determination of an appeal tribunal set up under the provision of the Placement and Unemploy*351ment Insurance Law of the State of Nebraska the trial is required to be de novo, or in other words anew.” (Emphasis supplied.)
Finally in A. Borchman Sons v. Carpenter, 166 Neb. 322, 89 N. W. 2d 123, we held: “Preliminary to a statement of fact and issues, it is necessary that we determine two matters. First. By the provisions of sections 48-639 and 48-640, R. R. S. 1943, of the Employment Security Law, the district court and this court consider the causes de novo upon the record, or ‘in other words to try the case anew.’ * * * This means also that it is the duty of this court to ‘retry the issue or issues of fact involved in the finding or findings of fact complained of’ and ‘reach an independent conclusion’ thereon.” (Emphasis supplied.)
In the face of the mandate of the statute and the decisions of this court, the court now directs an affirmation of the order of the director based on a review of the purported record of the proceedings before the director. A trial de novo is denied.
What were the issues made in the trial court?
By his petition on appeal the plaintiff alleged in part: “The Plaintiff expressly denies that he was lawfully convicted of the offense of speeding at the times and on the dates set forth in the Defendant’s letter of November 19, 1956, * * The court refers to this letter and it relates to the four alleged convictions for speeding upon which the action of the director rests.
The director answered summarizing the record of the four convictions upon which he had based the revocation order. There was no reply filed but in a pretrial order it was admitted by plaintiff that certain allegations of the director as to plaintiff’s residence, the identifying number of his operator’s license, and the entry of the revocation order were true, and “by way of reply plaintiff denies each and every other allegation of affirmative defense contained in said answer; * *
In the face of that state of the pleadings, the court *352states: “* * * plaintiff raised no question with regard to the validity of his convictions for speeding on April 1, 1955, and March 19, 1956, * * * or on November 8, 1956, * * I submit that by the pleadings plaintiff put those matters in direct issue.
What was the evidence in the district court that this driver had accumulated a total of 12 or more points? I hold that question was a direct issue in the district court. It was likewise the question before the director.
The court states that a “certified transcript of defendant’s proceedings * * * timely filed by him in the district court, was admittedly true and complete.” (Emphasis supplied.)
But what about the “certified transcript * * * was admittedly true and complete” statement of the court?
Following defendant’s answer, in the transcript, is a page entitled “Certificate” and reciting that the “attached is a complete and accurate transcript” of the proceedings in re operator’s license of plaintiff. Only the first page, which contains the “Certificate” has a filing mark. This is followed by nine unidentified pages containing no filing mark. They are no more “attached” to the certificate than they are to all other documents in the transcript. Then comes a pretrial order. This “Certificate” is not identified in or referred to in defendant’s answer.
The court holds that the record of judgments of conviction appear in the “stipulated and agreed * * * true and complete transcript of the record from the files in the Office of the Director of Motor Vehicles with reference to the plaintiff James C. Bradford, up to the date of December 3, 1956, * * The quote is correct, and taken from the pretrial order, but is incomplete. Omitted is “Exhibit 1 is a” ahead of true and complete, and omitted from the conclusion is “and may be offered and received in evidence without further foundation.”
The important thing is that “Exhibit 1” was neither identified, offered, nor admitted in evidence. The con*353tents of the exhibit do not appear. “Ex. No. 1” appears on the certificate page of the paper filed with the clerk of the district court. There is no attempt to identify the transcript filed in the district court clerk’s office with “Exhibit 1” referred to in the pretrial order.
Obviously the stipulation was the standard form for stipulating a waiver of foundation. It is so expressed. The exhibit to be considered in the trial should have been offered in evidence. This is the construction that the parties put on the stipulation, for exhibit 2, under a stipulation in the pretrial order, containing the exact condition was offered and received in evidence. To be considered here the exhibit must have been offered in evidence. It was not so offered.
The long established and heretofore followed rule is: “In order that a stipulation of facts may be considered on appeal, such stipulation must be identified and offered in evidence on the trial of the case and preserved in a bill of exceptions.” Higgins v. Postal Life & Casualty Ins. Co., 161 Neb. 278, 73 N. W. 2d 175.
Even on the court’s theory of the limited review afforded there was obviously no sufficient evidence before the trial court to sustain the director’s action. He at least should be required to prove his “record” that sustains his action. And yet the trial court is ordered to direct the affirmance of the director’s order even though there was no evidence before the trial court to show the required convictions to sustain the accumulation of 12 points.
The court holds that the plaintiff is making a collateral attack on a judgment and there is the suggestion that he should have made a direct attack on the judgment in a court of competent jurisdiction and, having succeeded, then come to the director for relief from his “final order.” Nowhere in the statute is there a suggestion that the Legislature contemplated such a circuitous multiple suit route to relief.
The court is concerned with the “chaos” and “delay” *354that will follow any other decision than the one it makes.
Section 39-7,131, R. S. Supp., 1955, provides: “Upon receiving a certified copy of the judgment of conviction of any resident of this state in any other state, the director shall charge such person with the number of points such offense would have justified if committed in this state.”
This decision can not only mean that a resident of Richardson County might be required to go to Sioux County to make such a direct attack, and all action in the director’s office be enjoined in the meantime, but under these exact circumstances, if there were a questioned judgment by a court of Maine or Washington or Florida or Alaska, a resident of Nebraska could be required to go to an extreme point in the United States, now even to Alaska, and there in a foreign state, in a foreign tribunal, seek relief from a void or voidable judgment, and all as a condition precedent to proving that a certificate filed with the director was false. Where is “delay” or “chaos” avoided?
Under this decision the certified summary of the judgment imports absolute verity. No relief from a foreign judgment may be had in the courts of this state. Certainly there can be no legislative intent that such be the result.
For all practical purposes the right of appeal in this class of cases is now a useless procedure.