In Louisiana, the supreme court of the state reviews the
questions of fact as well as of law which are brought up from the
courts below, and when it reverses a judgment upon either ground,
it gives the judgment which the inferior court ought to have
given.
But when a case is brought before this Court by a writ of error,
it can only review questions of law, and therefore, where the
validity of a verdict of a jury is brought into question, the
practice which prevails in the state courts of Louisiana is
inapplicable in the courts of the United States.
Hence, where the jury found a verdict in general terms for the
plaintiff in a suit upon a promissory note without finding the
amount due, which the laws and practice of Louisiana require them
to do, and the court then gave judgment for the amount of the note,
this would have been adjudged to be a cause of reversal of the
judgment by the supreme court of the state, but cannot be so held
by this Court.
The sufficiency of the verdict must be judged by the rules of
the common law and the statutes of the United States, and not by
the laws and practice of Louisiana. The Act of 1824, 4 Stat. 62,
does not include such a case.
By the common law, although a judgment in such a case might not
have been strictly proper, yet under a power of amending the
verdict, the judgment can stand because, the plea having been that
no consideration was given for the note and the verdict being for
the plaintiff, it necessarily found that the whole amount was
due.
The 32d section of the Judiciary Act provides for this case by
enjoining upon this Court to disregard niceties of form, and so it
was decided in
41 U. S. 16
Pet. 321.
The Constitution of Louisiana requires the state judges to give
reasons for their decisions, but this is not operative upon the
judges of the circuit court of the United States. On the contrary,
their reasons form no part of the record when the case is brought
up to this Court.
The plaintiffs, Turner & Renshaw, sued the defendant Parks
in the Circuit Court of the United States for the Eastern District
at New Orleans to recover $5,969.22, due by promissory note
executed by Parks to the plaintiffs. After exceptions
overruled,
Page 53 U. S. 40
the case was submitted to a jury, who returned the following
verdict:
"We, the jury, find for the plaintiff."
"New Orleans, May 14, 1849."
"H. R. WOOD,
Foreman"
which, on motion, was set aside, and the case submitted to
another jury, which returned the following verdict:
"We, the jury, find for the plaintiff."
"GEO. M. PINCKARD,
Foreman"
"New Orleans, 15 May, 1849."
On which verdict the following judgment was entered:
"In conformity with the prayer of the petition and the verdict
of the jury, it is ordered, adjudged, and decreed that the
plaintiffs, Turner & Renshaw, recover from the defendant,
George W. Parks, the sum of five thousand nine hundred and
sixty-nine dollars and twenty-two cents, with interest thereon at
the rate of six percent per annum from the first day of January,
A.D., 1848, until final payment, and costs of every nature."
"Judgment signed 19 May, 1848."
"[Signed] THEO. H. McCALEB,
U.S. Judge"
Parks sued out a writ of error and brought the case up to this
Court.
Page 53 U. S. 42
MR. CHIEF JUSTICE TANEY delivered the opinion of the Court.
The material facts in this case may be stated in a few words.
Turner and Renshaw, the defendants in error, filed their petition
in the Circuit Court of the United States for the Eastern District
of Louisiana alleging that Parks, the plaintiff in error, was
indebted to them in the sum of fifty-nine hundred and sixty-nine
dollars and twenty cents upon a promissory note for that sum drawn
by Parks, payable to his own order and by him endorsed to the
plaintiffs. A copy of the note is exhibited with the petition.
Parks in his answer states that he denies all and singular the
allegations in the petition except as therein afterwards admitted,
and says that the said note was given without any consideration
whatever, and is therefore a
nudum pactum and void.
Upon this issue the case was tried by a jury, which returned a
verdict in the following words: "We the jury find for the
Plaintiff."
And upon this verdict, the court gave judgment in favor of
Turner and Renshaw for the sum due upon the note, and the present
writ of error is brought by Parks to reverse that judgment.
Two objections are taken by the plaintiffs in error.
1st. That the verdict merely finds for the plaintiffs in the
circuit court, but does not find how much was due to them, and that
no judgment therefore could be lawfully entered on that
verdict.
2d. That the circuit court gave no reason for its judgment.
These objections have been argued altogether upon the laws of
Louisiana regulating the proceedings in its courts of justice, and
which, under the Act of Congress of 1824, are supposed to be
obligatory upon the circuit court of the United States.
Article 522 of the Code of Practice declares
"That the form of a general verdict consists in the foreman
endorsing on the back of the petition those words: 'verdict for the
plaintiff for so much, with interest,' if it has been prayed for,
or verdict for defendant, according as the verdict is for plaintiff
or defendant."
And the 70th article in the new Constitution of Louisiana,
adopted in 1845, provides that
"The judges of all the courts within the state shall, as often
as it may be possible so to do, in every definitive judgment refer
to the particular law in virtue of which such judgment may be
rendered, and in all cases adduce the reasons on which their
judgment is founded. "
Page 53 U. S. 43
It is evident, therefore, that if this case depended upon the
laws and practice of Louisiana, the judgment of the circuit court
could not be maintained. Either of the objections would be fatal.
And the case of
Hosea's Widow and Heirs v. Miles, 13 La.
107, is directly in point upon both grounds.
But it is difficult to apply the rules of Louisiana practice in
a case where the validity of a verdict is in question. The
appellate court of that state has jurisdiction of the fact as well
as of the law, and in deciding upon the fact, the court is not
bound by the finding of the jury in the inferior court, but may
decide in opposition to the verdict if they think it was not
warranted by the testimony in the record. And when they reverse the
judgment of the court below, for error in fact or in law, they at
the same time give the judgment which the inferior court ought to
have given.
Upon an appeal, therefore, to the supreme court of the state for
errors like those now alleged to have been committed by the circuit
court of the United States, although the judgment would have been
reversed, yet the state court would at the same time have given
judgment in favor of the defendants in error for the full amount of
their debt. They would not have been delayed in the recovery of
their money by mere technical objections to the proceedings in the
inferior court, nor subjected to the expense of another trial and
perhaps another appeal. The case of
Hosea's Widow and Heirs v.
Miles shows the course of proceeding in the state courts. For
precisely the same errors now alleged in the case before us were
committed in that case by the court below, and although the supreme
court reversed the judgment on both grounds, they at the same time
gave judgment in favor of the appellee for the amount due upon the
note.
Now as to the first objection we certainly cannot adopt in this
Court the practice and mode of proceeding in the appellate court of
Louisiana. For a writ of error can bring up to this Court nothing
but questions of law. And as the whole practice of Louisiana cannot
be adopted in a case of this description, is the circuit court
bound to follow it, and must the validity of this verdict depend
upon the rules of the common law and the acts of Congress, or upon
the formula prescribed by the Louisiana code of practice?
Unquestionably the force and operation of the verdict when the case
is brought here depends upon the rules of the common law. It is
conclusive upon this Court as to the fact found, while in Louisiana
it is open to revision and reversal in the appellate court. And if
the conclusive force and effect of a verdict depends upon the rules
of the common law, it would seem to follow that what is a
sufficient finding by the jury to
Page 53 U. S. 44
constitute a legal verdict upon the issues joined, and to make
it operate as such, must also depend upon the rules of the common
law, except insofar as they may be modified by acts of Congress.
And while this Court is bound to give effect to the verdict
according to the rules of the common law, it can hardly be required
to look elsewhere in order to ascertain what finding of the jury is
a verdict, and entitled to the conclusive effect which the common
law gives it. And if in this case it had appeared that the verdict
had been delivered orally by the foreman and recorded by the court,
and not endorsed on the back of the petition, this Court could not
on that account have treated the finding as a nullity and refused
to it the authority and force of a verdict.
Besides, the enforcement of the Louisiana practice in the
circuit court of the United States would place the suitors in that
court in a worse condition than the suitors in the state courts,
and an accidental departure from the prescribed from would be much
more injurious in its consequences. We think the sufficiency of the
verdict in its form, as well as the question of its force and
effect, must depend upon the rules of the common law and the
statutes of the United States, and that the qualified adoption of
the practice of Louisiana by the act of 1824 was not intended to
carry it to the extent now contended for by the plaintiff in
error.
We proceed, therefore, to consider the case upon the principles
of the common law and statutes of the United States.
The answer of the plaintiff in error, by necessary implication,
admits that he executed and endorsed the note. For the only defense
he takes in his answer is that it was given without consideration
and was
nudum pactum. The issue was joined upon this point
only. The answer contains no other objection to the validity of the
note, nor does it allege that any part of the note had been paid,
nor that he had any set-off against it, and upon these pleadings
and issue the jury said it found for the plaintiff. Now this
verdict undoubtedly finds that the note was given upon a good
consideration, although the jury did not say so in so many words,
and it is equally clear that in finding that it was given upon a
valid consideration, it must necessarily have found also that the
full amount specified in the note was due to the defendants in
error. For there was no allegation and no evidence that any part
had been paid. No one, we think, can read the pleadings and the
verdict without being satisfied that this is the true meaning of
the jury. There is no ambiguity or uncertainty in it. And the
judgment in the circuit court is evidently according to this
finding, and is therefore correct unless there is some rule of law
which renders the verdict inoperative and void.
Page 53 U. S. 45
It is certainly the province of the jury in a case of this kind
not only to determine whether the plaintiff is entitled to recover,
but to find also and at the same time the amount due. And in a
court acting strictly upon common law forms and modes of
proceeding, no judgment could have been legally entered, because
the verdict omits to specify in express terms and in the
established form the amount which the defendants in error were
entitled to recover. How far the verdict might even yet be amended
in the circuit court is another question. For although the rule was
anciently very strict in not permitting amendments to verdicts, yet
in later cases this strictness has been relaxed in order to prevent
a failure of justice, and while the English courts adhered to the
established forms, they often prevented them from working injustice
to the parties by a liberal use of the power of amendment.
Thus, in the case of
Richardson v. Mellish, 3 Bing.
334, 346, a general verdict had been rendered and damages assessed
upon a declaration in which one count was good and the others bad.
A judgment upon this verdict was rendered in the Court of Common
Pleas without adverting to the insufficiency of some of the courts,
and the case was afterwards removed to the King's Bench by writ of
error. As the record stood, the judgment of the Court of Common
Pleas must undoubtedly have been reversed. But while the case was
pending in the King's Bench and had been argued there and this
error insisted upon as a ground for reversal, the Court of Common
Pleas amended the verdict by entering it for the plaintiffs on the
good count and for the defendant in those counts which did not show
a cause of action. The court was convinced by the notes of the
judge who tried the case that the evidence offered at the trial
applied to the good count, and that there would be a failure of
justice if the judgment was reversed upon this technical objection,
which could and would have been readily removed if made at the
trial.
We refer to this case to show that the English courts, when
acting altogether upon the principles of the common law, will amend
a verdict actually rendered by the jury and recorded if the court
is satisfied from the evidence and the pleadings that in the form
in which it was given by the jury it does not accomplish what they
intended, and would on that account fail to do justice to the party
in whose favor they found.
But it is not necessary to examine further into the practice of
courts acting upon the rules of the common law, nor to inquire
whether the verdict in this case, if defective in form, might not
yet be amended in the circuit court. For we are satisfied that the
thirty-second section of the Act of Congress of
Page 53 U. S. 46
1789, ch., 20, removes all difficulty in the case and makes it
the duty of this Court to affirm the judgment rendered on this
verdict.
The section of the law referred to directs the courts of the
United States to proceed and give judgment according as the right
of the cause and matter in law shall appear to them, without
regarding any imperfections or defects or want of form in the writ,
declaration, or other pleading, return, process, judgment, or
course of proceeding whatever, except those only in cases of
demurrer, which the party demurring shall specially sit down and
express together with his demurrer as the cause thereof. This is a
remedial statute, and must be construed liberally to accomplish its
object. It not only enables the courts of the United States, but it
enjoins it upon them as a duty, to disregard the niceties of form
which often stand in the way of justice and to give judgment
according as the right of the cause and matter in law shall appear
to them. And although verdicts are not specially mentioned in this
provision, yet the words "or course of proceeding whatever" are
evidently broad enough to include them, and, as they are within the
evil, they cannot, upon a fair interpretation of the statute, be
excluded from the remedy.
The question, however, has been already decided in this Court in
the case of
Roach v.
Hulings, 16 Pet. 321,
41 U. S. 322.
In that case, as in the one now before the Court, the verdict was
defective according to strict technical rules, and no judgment
could legally be entered upon it. But this Court held that the act
of Congress above mentioned was intended to remove objections of
that description where they impeded the administration of justice,
and that it extended to imperfections and want of form in the
findings of juries, as well as to the other proceedings in the
suit. And although, according to the strictness required by common
law rules, the judgment must have been reversed, the court
sustained it upon the ground that the substantial meaning of the
verdict was manifest and the defects objected to cured by this act
of Congress. The intention of the jury in the case before us is
equally clear upon the record, and, upon the principles decided in
the case of
Roach v. Hulings, equally within the
protection of the act of Congress. The right of the cause and the
legal obligation of the plaintiff in error to pay this money is
sufficiently apparent upon this record.
The second objection taken by the plaintiff in error is
obviously untenable. The provision in the Constitution of Louisiana
requiring the judges in the different courts to adduce the reasons
upon which their judgment is founded can, of course, have no
authority in the courts of the United States unless adopted by an
act of Congress. And the act of 1824, adopting to a certain
Page 53 U. S. 47
extent the practice of the state courts, has no reference to a
provision of this description. Indeed, such a provision is
inconsistent with the practice and modes of proceeding in the
courts of the United States. For the reasons upon which the opinion
of the inferior court is founded form no part of a record when a
case is brought here by writ of error. They cannot properly be
inserted in a bill of exceptions. The point or principle of law, as
applied to the case before the Court, is all that is certified, and
not the reasons upon which the court decided.
The judgment of the circuit court is therefore
Affirmed.
Order
This cause came on to be heard on the transcript of the record
from the Circuit Court of the United States for the Eastern
District of Louisiana, and was argued by counsel. On consideration
whereof, it is now here ordered and adjudged by this Court, that
the judgment of the said circuit court in this cause be and the
same is hereby affirmed with costs and damages at the rate of six
percentum per annum.