Court Opinion

ID: 9668531
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 02:17:24.630779+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:15:45.981222
License: Public Domain

Per Curiam
(on motion for rehearing). In the brief of the respondent, Harold R. Cram, presented in support of his motion for rehearing, he contends that under sec. 256.08, Stats., and under the rule of State ex rel. Pardeeville Electric Light Co. v. Sachtjen (1944), 245 Wis. 26, 13 N. W. (2d) 538, the successor judge was entitled to make findings based upon evidence of record heard before the predecessor judge. He directs attention to the following statements of principles:
“In the absence of a statute to the contrary, as a general rule a successor judge may not render judgment in a case begun before his predecessor without a trial de novo.” 48 C. J. S., Judges, p. 1019, sec. 56.
“In the absence of a governing statute, the authorities are in conflict as to the power of a judge other than the one who tries a case to enter a judgment or render a decision therein.” 30 Am. Jur., Judges, p. 751, sec. 38.
“In the absence of a governing statute, the authorities are in conflict as to the power of a judge other than the one who tries a case to enter a judgment or render a decision therein.” Anno. 54 A. L. R. 953.
The respondent submits that sec. 256.08, Stats., is controlling. That statute provides:
“No process, proceeding, or action, civil or criminal, before any court of record shall be discontinued by the *384boccurrence of any vacancy in the office of any judge or of all the judges of such court, nor by the election of any new judge or judges of any such court, but the persons so elected shall have power to continue, hear, and determine such process, proceedings, or action as their predecessors might have done if no new election had been held.”
The purpose of the statute in question is to obviate the necessity of discontinuance of an action or proceeding which is pending in a court when there is a vacancy of the judge or judges and an election of a successor or successors. The phraseology “but the persons so elected shall have power to continue, hear, and determine such process, proceedings, or action as their predecessors might have done if no new election had been held,” does not authorize the successor judge to weigh and compare testimony of witnesses whom he did not see or hear.
In State ex rel. Pardeeville Electric Light Co. v. Sachtjen, supra, the public service commission and not the court made the findings. The matter before the successor judge in that case was in the nature of a review of the decision of the commission. It was comparable to a review by this court of the findings of a trial court. The situation there was not analogous to that herein.
Motion for rehearing denied, with costs.