Court Opinion

ID: 9868359
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-26 18:31:40.609803+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:45:49.785553
License: Public Domain

*3250'N PETITION TO BeHEAR.
Petition to rehear has been tiled in which it is complained that the Court erred in not reversing the action of the Chancellor in setting aside pro confesso and permitting Defendant Commissioner to file answer without requiring him to pay costs at that time accrued in the sum of $7. It is apparently the sense of the argument , though not positively stated, that such requirement is mandatory under Code sec. 10456. Petitioner cites no authority for this contention and we have found none in our reports. The strongest expression favorable to petitioner is to be found in Tharpe v. Dunlap, 51 Tenn. 674, at page 681, where the Court said before setting aside pro confesso, the Chancellor should have taxed the accrued costs against a Defendant who had been negligent in not filing answer. In that ease, however, the reversal was not on that action of the Chancellor and the holding only that on the- record there presented, the Chancellor had abused his discretion. Code sec. 10456, on which petitioner relies, being in pari materia, is to be construed with sec. 10603, which provides that in Chancery: “Upon the final decree, the costs shall be paid by the party against whom the court shall adjudge them, according to its discretion.”
The Chancellor’s allocation of costs is subject to our review, only for “clear” (State v. Lewis, 78 Tenn. 168), “palpable” (Snapp v. Purcell, 81 Tenn. 693) abuse of such discretion. Petitioner presents no facts in this record to evidence an abuse of the Chancellor’s discretion. Savage v. Neal, 151 Tenn. 70, 76, 268 S. W. 375.
Other matters in petition to rehear consist of reargument of contentions fully considered in our former opin*326ion and are insufficient to support a rehearing. Rule 32, 173 Tenn. 887.
To dispose of petitioner’s objection to the statement by this Court that filing of the transcript of proceedings before the Board of Review was necessary for the equitable disposition of questions presented to the Chancellor, it is sufficient to point out that the consideration of the transcript by the Chancellor was an express prayer of petition himself in petition for cer-tiorari. Since the transcript was in the custody of the Commissioner or his agent, the prayer of petition could only be granted by permitting the Commissioner to authenticate and file the transcript.
Petition denied.