2 Ky. 25 | Ky. Ct. App. | 1801
All human tribunals are liable to err, and errors in law being most frequently committed and most easily detected, some rational mode for correcting them is provided by well-regulated government. In England, decrees in chancery may be reviewed and .affirmed, reversed or amended, by the court which pronounced them, or by a court of appeals; but (to say nothing in general of the limitations as to time), after they once have been decided on by the supreme court of appeals, they can never again be reconsidered on points of law, by that or any other court; and at present the same rules, in substance, are observed in this state. But the framers of our late constitution of government, thinking that it would be greatly for the interest of the community, in land causes, to avoid the expense and delay attending the English system, invested our supreme court of appeals with original and final jurisdiction over such suits; and empowered it to hear and determine them in a summary way, and to direct the most cheap and expeditious mode of preparing them for trial, which could be devised, so as to do right and justice to the parties, and be consistent with the general rules and regulations, prescribed by the constitution, prescribed by the legislature. This system or device has been abolished; yet as the decree in question was made during the time of its existence, it must be subjected to the principles, and to the rules and regulations, which were its offspring, and were peculiar to it, without regard to their propriety or impropriety.
Bills of review were not expressly prohibited under the last mentioned system; but as to errors in law, it would seem that they, at least, are excluded by clear implication. It was provided in that constitution, that a jury should always be empannelled for the finding of such facts as were not agreed by the parties; unless the parties or their attorneys should waive the right of trial by jury, and refer the matter of fact to the decision of the court.- And by the 16th rule of the court, viva voce testimony was required, with only a few exceptions, which was the necessary consequence of the provision requiring juries; for one of
The remark just made, even renders it doubtful, whether a bill of review, founded on the discovery of new testimony, can be sus
Wherefore, it is decreed and ordered, that the decree of the said district court do stand unaltered and affirmed, and that the appellants pay unto the appellees their costs in this behalf expended, which is ordered to be certified to the said court.