When an issue is directed by a court of chancery to be tried by
a court of law, and in the course of the trial at law questions are
raised and bills of exceptions taken, these questions must be
brought to the notice and decision of the court of chancery which
sends the issue.
If this is not done, the objections cannot be taken in an
appellate court of chancery.
If the chancery court below refers matters of account to a
master, his report cannot be objected to in the appellate court
unless exceptions to it have been filed in the court below in the
manner pointed out in the seventy-third chancery rule of this
Court.
The case is sufficiently stated in the opinion of the Court.
MR. JUSTICE McLEAN delivered the opinion of the Court.
The complainants filed their bill, alleging themselves to be the
legitimate heirs of Robert Brockett, deceased, and claiming as such
one-half of the real and personal property of which he died seized
and possessed. The defendants filed their answers, denying the
allegations of the bill. An issue at law was directed to try the
legitimacy of the complainants, and after hearing the evidence, the
jury found a verdict in their favor.
Several exceptions were taken to the rulings of the court in the
admission of evidence to the jury, and to the refusal of the court
to admit evidence offered by the defendants, which appear in two
bills of exceptions. And these decisions, in relation to the trial
of the issue, constitute the principal ground of controversy in the
case.
It does not appear that any questions were raised on the
chancery side of the court, growing out of these exceptions. And
this not having been done, it is proper to inquire whether the
exceptions can be considered in this Court.
It is contended that as the same judges sat in the court of law
as in the court of chancery, that it could not be necessary to
bring before them as chancellors what they had decided in a court
of law. Had the court of law been held by different persons from
those who sat as chancellors, it is admitted that it would have
been necessary to bring before the latter the points ruled in the
trial of the issue. But is not the principle the same in both
cases? The capacities in which the same tribunal acts on such
occasions are as distinct as if the same duties had been performed
by different tribunals.
Page 44 U. S. 692
The distinction is the same as where a judgment at law is
entered by a court which also exercises chancery powers, and which
powers are invoked against its own judgment. In such a case it
might as well be said, as in the present one, why may not the same
court, whether acting at law or in chancery, having possession of
the cause, finally decide it.
The bills of exceptions are copied into the record, but they do
not properly constitute a part of it, as they were not brought to
the notice and decision of the court sitting in chancery. An issue
in part is directed by a court of chancery to inform its
conscience. To bring the fact or facts before the jury at law, a
feigned issue is made by pleadings, as at law, and if the pleadings
of the jury be unsatisfactory to the court of chancery, either on
account of the admission of incompetent evidence, the exclusion of
evidence which is competent, or by a mistake of the facts by the
jury, the court of chancery will order another trial of the issue.
By the consent of parties, these issues are sometimes tried without
the formality of pleading. But in all cases where objections exist
to the verdict, they must be brought before the court of chancery
which orders the issue. And where this is not done in an inferior
court, the objections cannot be taken in the appellate court of
chancery. It is a general rule of practice that no point arising on
the pleadings or evidence in an appellate court shall be made which
was not brought to the notice of the inferior court. And we think
in this case that the exceptions taken on the trial of the issue at
law, not having been acted on by the court of chancery below,
cannot be insisted on in this Court.
Being satisfied of the legitimacy and consequent heirship of the
complainants, from the verdict of the jury, the court below
referred to a master the rents received by the defendants, and
other matters of account pertaining to the estate. And to some of
the items allowed by the master objections are made before this
Court. But it does not appear that these objections were brought
before the lower court by exceptions to the master's report. The
seventy-third chancery rule is decisive on this subject. It
provides that
"The parties shall have one month from the time of filing the
master's report, to file exceptions thereto, and if no exceptions
are within that period filed by either party, the report shall
stand confirmed on the next rule day after the month is
expired."
No exceptions having been filed in the circuit court to the
report of the master, none can be heard in this Court.
The verdict and the report of the master, which constituted the
basis of the decree of the court below, not having been objected to
in that court, cannot be objected to here, and consequently the
decree of the circuit court is
Affirmed with costs.