Court Opinion

ID: 7817583
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2022-09-07 17:41:29.484812+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T16:30:38.625564
License: Public Domain

George Rose Smith, Justice, dissenting. I would reverse the decree on the basis of the two depositions that the majority have not seen fit to consider. Those depositions were taken by agreement. They are properly certified by the clerk of the trial court as part of the record. They have been abstracted by the appellants, along with the other testimony submitted for our consideration. The appellee has made no objection to the two depositions. Yet the majority, on their own initiative, raise a technical objection to that part of the record and go on to reach a conclusion that would seem to be unwarranted if all the proof before us were taken into account. The situation, which was explained during the oral argument, is not apt to arise again. The chancellor, Judge Paul X. Williams, was nominated to a federal judgeship before he had reached a final decision in this case. In the course of clearing his docket he filed his findings of fact and conclusions of law on June 22 and directed counsel for the prevailing party to prepare a precedent for a final decree, which was also signed on June 22. On the next day, June 23, Judge Williams was sworn in as a United States district judge. See 266 F. Supp. p. xv, footnote 11. The parties went ahead with the taking of the depositions and eventually filed them, without objection, for inclusion in the record. It will be seen that Judge Williams faced something of a dilemma: Either he could leave to his successor an undecided case in which Judge Williams himself had heard the oral testimony, or he could decide the case himself without having seen the depositions that were being taken. He chose the second course, no doubt in all good’ conscience and with the realization that the missing depositions might ultimately tip the weight of the evidence against his decision. I should emphasize that for us to consider the two depositions would not set a precedent requiring us to consider in every case proof that had not been seen by the trial judge. The precedent would be controlling only in a case similar to the one at bar. Should that unlikely situation ever confront us again, I would be perfectly willing to adhere to the rule of taking into account all the proof that counsel have seen fit to include in the record. That course merely puts the merits of the case above a technical point of no importance. Harris, 0. J., joins in this dissent.