Court Opinion

ID: 9637493
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 15:07:45.787979+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:09:56.544070
License: Public Domain

On Petition for Rehearing.
The references in the opinion to a conference of the representative of Mississippi Power Company with the National Administrator are based on a deposition of the former which was certified by the clerk of the district court as a part of the record on appeal. The motion for rehearing makes the point that the stipulation under which the deposition was taken provided that the testimony “may be used upon the trial of the case and introduced in evidence by any party thereto, subject only to such objections as might be made if the deponent were present and testifying in open court,” and that the transcript *447of the proceedings at the trial does not show that the deposition was offered in evidence by anyone, or considered by the court, but the contrary. The stipulation, made under Rule of Civil Procedure 29, 28 U.S.C.A. following section 723c, embodies the substance of Rule 26, (d), (e), (f), as to the use of the deposition. Unless someone offered it in evidence on the trial it was not evidence in the case, nor was it proper to be transmitted as such with the record on appeal. When designated by appellees to be certified and sent up as a part of such record, appellant should have applied to the district court under the first sentence of Rule 75(h) to have the deposition excluded as not having been introduced and considered in the trial. But the inclusion of it does not justify this court in considering it, for in an equity case an appeal is not a trial de novo. We are satisfied that the deposition was not read on the trial and that the judgment was entered solely on the evidence presented by the United States. Over appellant’s protest, we should consider nothing else.
This conclusion does not affect our decision. The burden was on the United States to prove that its representative relied on the misrepresentation and was deceived by it. The appellee did not have to show the contrary. By the evidence introduced, this burden was not carried.
Rehearing denied.