158 Ind. 9 | Ind. | 1901
Appellant in the above cause has filed and presented his application whereby he seeks to have the appeal transferred from the Appellate to the Supreme Court. In his application he alleges the following facts: On May 8,1901, the Appellate Court affirmed the judgment below without giving any opinion in writing whereby the reasons of the court for the judgment of affirmance are disclosed. On the 11th day of October following, that court denied appellant’s petition for a rehearing. On November 6th he filed his application in question on the grounds : (1) “That the decision of the Appellate Court in affirming the judgment contravenes ruling precedents or decisions of the Supreme Court, namely, Davis v. Cox, 6 Ind. 481, and Popijoy v. Miller, 133 Ind. 19”; and, (2) “that a new question of law is directly involved in the cause, and that said question was decided erroneously by the Appellate Court.”
The applicant, in his argument in support of his application, makes the following statement: “The Appellate Court not having handed down an opinion with its decision affirming the judgment, nor with its decision overruling appellant’s petition for rehearing, we are left in ignorance of the grounds and authorities upon which it predicated its decision.” Under the circumstances, we are equally as ignorant in respect to the grounds and authorities upon which the judgment or decision of the Appellate Court is based as is the applicant or his counsel. We are urged, however, to consider the facts and questions as presented by the record, and the authorities cited by the respective parties in their briefs filed in the Appellate Court, and upon these deter
It is evident, we think, that, when tested by the statute under which the transfer of this cause is requested, the application must be denied, for the reason that there is no opinion or statement in writing on the part of the Appellate Court, disclosing its views in regard to the law as applied by it to the case, or detailing the reasons on which the judgment of affirmance is based. In Barnett v. Bryce Furnace Co., 157 Ind. 572, we said: “The plain purpose of the subdivision in question, however, was not to give this court jurisdiction to determine whether the facts in cases which are not appealable here as a matter of right have been correctly understood and stated by the Appellate Court, but to authorize this court to control the declaration of legal principles.”
By §13 of the act by which the Appellate Court was originally created, Acts 1891, p. 39, it was provided: “In every case reversed, an opinion shall be given upon the material questions therein in writing, stating the reasons, and judg
It must be evident that this section of the statute of 1901, which section is virtually a substitute for §13 of the act of 1891, makes it the duty of the Appellate Court to give and file a written opinion on each material question involved and duly presented in the appeal, only when the judgment of the trial court is reversed. If the judgment is affirmed, the court is not, under the law, required to give a written opinion disclosing the reasons for the judgment of affirmance. It may, however, in the exercise of its discretion, if it deems the questions presented of sufficient importance, do so; but in regard to that question the legislature has left that court alone to determine.
The Appellate Court, in the determination of appeals therein pending, is not controlled by §5, article 7 of the Constitution of this State which provides that “The Supreme Court shall, upon the decision of every case, give a statement in writing of each question arising in the record of such case and the decision of the court thereon.”
The next inquiry is, what did the legislature mean or intend by the term “opinion” as employed in subdivision 2 of §10 of the act of 1901, in providing that the losing party in the Appellate Court might apply to the Supreme Court for the transfer of a cause from the former court to the latter “on the ground that the opinion of said division of the Appellate Court contravenes a ruling precedent of the Supreme Court, or that a new question of law is directly involved and was decided erroneously ?” (Our italics.) What did the legislature contemplate should be accepted and considered
The term “opinion,” in a legal sense, so far as it applies to judges and courts, has a well-defined meaning. In law, Webster’s Int. Diet, defines the word to mean “the expression of views of the judge,” etc. Bouvier’s Law Dict. defines the word opinion in practice to be “a statement of reasons delivered by a judge or court for giving the judgment which is pronounced upon a case.” Black’s Law Dict. defines the term to mean “The statement by a judge or court of the decision reached in regard to a cause tried or argued
In the sense and meaning as above defined and well understood in legal parlance, the term “opinion” is used in the statute in question. It certainly follows that, before we are authorized under the statute to determine whether the ground or reason alleged in an application for the transfer of a cause from the Appellate to the Supreme Court is sustained, there must have been given and filed in the former court in the particular case, a written opinion or statement whereby the law as applied by that tribunal in deciding the case is exposed, and the reasons for reversing or affirming, as the case may be, the judgment of the trial court, are given. The statute in question, upon a fair and reasonable interpretation thereof, requires that we look to and examine the written opinion of the Appellate Court in order to determine whether the ground or reason assigned for the transfer is sustained, and does not require that we shall examine the record and briefs of the parties, as filed in tire Appellate Court, in deciding upon the ground alleged for the transfer. As the application discloses that no written opinion whatever was given by the Appellate Court, therefore, the applicant has nothing upon which to base his application, and consequently, under the circumstances, we are not in a position to decide the questions which he seeks to present.
The application is, therefore, denied.