11 Minn. 92 | Minn. | 1865
By the Oowri
The submission in this case having been properly executed, conferred jurisdiction on the arbitrators, and the filing of the award with the clerk, we think, gave the District Court jurisdiction. If the court thus acquired jurisdiction, it was competent for the parties to waive all objections to the award on account of formal errors and irregularities, and to authorize the clerk to enter judgment thereon at once, without confirmation by the court. Hughes v. Bywater, 4 Hill, 551; Yeates v. Russell, 17 John. 461; Daniels v. Willis, 7 Minn. 374; Farrington v. Hamblin, 12 Wend. 212.
The errors complained of being purely formal and technical, affecting neither the rights of either party, nor the merits of the controversy, and the parties having expressly waived “all appeal, writ of error, and other review, of whatever kind, which might or could be taken of or from said award, and of or from said judgment,” neither can, legally or in good faith, question the award or judgment, except on account Of fraud. See authorities above cited.
"When our statute provides that the award shall be delivered or transmitted to the clerk, and that the time within which it shall be made and reported “ may be varied according to the agreement of the parties,” and when there is no reason for holding that it should be made at any particular time or at any term of the court, we think it is obvious that it was not the intention to require it to be made at any such term. Sec. 15 of the Arbitration Law provides, that “ the award may be returned at any term or session of the court that may be held within the time limited by the submission, and the parties shall attend at every such term or session without any express'" notice for that purpose, * * but the court may require actual uotice to be given, <fcc.” To this section we are referred, as being in conflict with the views above expressed. The word may, in statutes, means must, or shall, only in cases where the public interests or the rights of third persons require it to be so construed. Newburgh Turnpike Co. v. Muller, 5 John. Ch. R. 113; Malcom v. Rogers, 5 Cowen, 192; Blackwell on Tax Titles, (2d Ed.,) 615-16, and cases
One other objection is interposed: The want of the proper revenue stamp on the submission papers or award. "We cannot say on,which the respondent’s counsel claims the stamp should be placed. W"e are unable to find any provision of the revenue law requiring such a stamp upon either. There was a stamp such as is required on “ an agreement ” placed on the submission ; but it is claimed that one of the papers was in the nature of “ original process,” and therefore subject to a stamp duty of fifty cents. The revenue law provides that a “writ, or other original process,” by which a suit is commenced in any court of record, shall be stamped with a revenue stamp of the denomination of fifty cents. There is no paper in this case that can, with any propriety, or in any legal or ordinary acceptation of the term, be called a “writ” or “other original process.” This objection, therefore, cannot prevail.
The order appealed from is reversed.