Bredthauer v. Bredthauer
Annotate this CaseWife filed a complaint for divorce from Husband, and the matter proceeded to trial. Neither party, however, timely requested the official court reporter to report and transcribe the proceeding as prescribed by Rule 904 of the Uniform Rules for District Courts. The official court reporter was consequently unavailable for trial, and the district court would not permit any resulting transcript prepared by an unofficial court reporter to be considered an official transcript. The trial was held without a court reporter present, and a divorce decree issued. Wife challenged the divorce decree on appeal, arguing that the district court erred by refusing to allow the trial proceedings to be transcribed by an unofficial court reporter. The Supreme Court affirmed, holding (1) the district court abused its discretion in refusing to allow Wife to use a substitute reporter to transcribe the proceedings and prepare an official transcript; but (2) Wife was not prejudiced by the ruling.
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