Court Opinion

ID: 9810319
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 21:46:17.053851+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:39:34.623235
License: Public Domain

Stacy, O. J.,
dissenting: I regret to disagree with my brethren on a question of procedure, but our difference in the present case is fundamental and goes to the basic right of every litigant to be heard. Markham v. Carver, 188 N. C., 615.
It will be observed that Judge McElroy adopted the first four findings of fact, as originally made by the referee, set aside the last six, together with the referee’s first two conclusions of law, and then remanded the cause to the referee “to find facts and state conclusions of law upon the issues that arise upon the pleadings and report his findings of fact and conclusions of law to the Superior Court.”
It is held by the court that this order did not contemplate the hearing of additional evidence by the referee, but that its only purpose was to have the referee revise his findings upon the evidence already taken and make his report more definite. I do not so understand the order. If this be its meaning, why was the matter sent back to the referee at all ? The evidence previously taken by the referee accompanied his report and was then before the judge of the Superior Court who-was authorized, in the exercise of his supervisory power, to amend, modify, set aside, make additional findings and confirm, in whole or in part, or disaffirm the report of the referee. C. S., 579; Vaughan v. Lewellyn, 94 N. C., 474; S. v. Jackson, 183 N. C., 695. The judge adopted some of the findings originally made by the referee and set aside others. His order certainly contemplated another hearing before the Superior Court upon the final report of the referee, and this would have been a useless consumption of time if it was to be made only on the evidence already taken and then before the court. Why have another hearing upon the same evidence when both the referee and the judge had already heard the case on that evidence? Why did Judge McElroy not proceed to judgment immediately upon the evidence then before the court ?
The two reports of the referee are almost identical. The amount awarded the defendant is the same in both reports. On exceptions filed to the first report, six of the referee’s findings were set aside. These, it seems to me, have been reinstated and confirmed without adequate opportunity on the part of the plaintiff to- be heard, either before the referee or the judge of the Superior Court. The fact that they were set aside in the first instance would indicate serious dispute as to their *595correctness, but it appears tbat plaintiff won on ber exceptions first filed, only to lose later without further opportunity to be heard.
Possibly the plaintiff deserves to lose on the merits of her case; but as a matter of procedure, she is entitled to a fair opportunity to be heard and she ought to be made to feel, as every litigant should rightly feel, that she has had a fair chance to present her case. A majority of the Court considers that this has been done in the instant suit. I think otherwise; and from this difference, springs our divergence of opinion.