71 Ky. 476 | Ky. Ct. App. | 1871
delivered the opinion oe the court.
The first question presented by this record is whether or not the cause could be legally tried by a special judge elected by the members of the bar, the appellants not consenting thereto.
Section 1, article 13, chapter 27, Revised Statutes, authorizes the election of special judges when from any cause the regular judge shall fail to attend his court, or, if in attendance, will not or can not properly preside in a cause or causes pending therein. It is insisted, however, that the 20th section of an act approved March 5, 1860 (Myers’s Supplement, Revised Statutes, page 78), repeals so much of the Revised Statutes as authorized the election of a special judge to try causes in which the regular judge can not preside. This section provides that “if from any cause the judge of the court can not properly preside in any civil action, the parties to such action may by agreement select some one of the attorneys practicing at that court to try the same. . . . But if the parties fail to make such agreement, the judge shall order the venue to be changed to the nearest county, in some adjoining circuit, most convenient to the parties and their witnesses.”
It is difficult to conceive how this act can be obeyed without disregarding the section of the Revised Statutes referred to. Yet inasmuch as the statute, which seems to be repealed by implication, was evidently enacted in obedience to the 28th section of the 4th article of the State Constitution, which requires the General Assembly to “provide by law for holding
In the cause under consideration the presiding judge, being of counsel, could not properly preside. When it was reached by a call of the docket it was clearly his duty to give place to a special judge for the trial of the action, provided such judge, could be obtained in the mode prescribed by law. Although the act of 1866 uses the term mode, there were in point of fact at the time of its passage two modes by which a special judge might be selected. Article 13, chapter 37, Revised .Statutes, authorized the members of the bar in attendance to elect, and the same article, as well as the act
It is objected that the act of 1866 is void because its title does not express the subject-matter embraced by it; that the act of 1860 repealed the 13th article of chapter 27, Revised Statutes, and hence that there was no such article to amend. If it be conceded that the act of 1860 repealed any portion of that article, it certainly left in full force that portion providing for the election of a special judge when from any cause the regular judge failed to attend. Such being the case, the fallacy of this objection is apparent.. For these reasons we conclude that the action of the members of the bar in holding the election for the special judge, and the trial of the cause by that officer after being so elected, were acts clearly within the spirit of the statutes regulating proceedings in cases in which the regular judge will not or can not properly preside.
The second question presented is whether the bill of exceptions can be considered by this court.
After the motion of appellants for a new trial had been overruled, an order was made giving them until the third day of the succeeding term to pre2)are and file their bill of exceptions. On that day this order was made: “ This day came the defendants by attorney and presented their bill of exceptions, and they not being completed, further time is given them to complete and file the same.” Two days afterward they appeared and were allowed to file what purports to be their bill