James v. Appel
1904 U.S. LEXIS 1040 · 192 U.S. 129 · 24 S. Ct. 222 · 48 L. Ed. 377
January 4, 1904 · Docket 108
Headnotes
Generated summaries- Headnote 1
The statute sets a procedural deadline that the trial court must observe, ensuring that motions for new trials are resolved during the same term they are filed.
- Headnote 2
The deemed‑denial rule makes the unanswered motion automatically a denial, allowing the issues to be reviewed by the Supreme Court as if the lower court had actually denied the motion.
- Headnote 3
Because the motion is considered overruled at term’s end, the judgment becomes final then, triggering the normal deadline for filing a timely appeal; an appeal filed after that deadline is untimely.
- Headnote 4
The Court held that imposing a statute of limitations on the consideration of new‑trial motions is within legislative power and does not breach due‑process guarantees, as the right to a new trial is not essential to due process.
- Headnote 5
The Court applied the presumption that copied statutes retain their original interpretive meaning, citing earlier cases on borrowed statutes.
- Headnote 6
The statute creates a right of review for both actual denials and deemed denials, allowing the higher court to consider the issues as if the lower court had overruled the motion.
- Headnote 7
The Court held that the power to set procedural deadlines for new‑trial motions is analogous to the power to set limitations on commencing actions and is therefore constitutional. The statute merely defines the time within which the motion must be acted upon.
- Headnote 8
The amendment to § 842 states that the motion is “deemed denied” after the term ends, treating it as if the court had overruled the motion. Accordingly, the judgment is final and the appeal deadline runs from that date, as recognized in Spicer v. Simms.
- Headnote 9
Section 837 obliges the trial court to determine the motion at the term of filing, and § 842 provides that an unruled‑upon motion is deemed denied at the term’s close, making the issues reviewable as if overruled.
- Headnote 10
The Court applied the longstanding presumption that a borrowed statute retains the interpretation given it in the jurisdiction from which it was taken, citing Tucker v. Oxley and related authorities.
- Headnote 11
The Court noted Texas precedent that the statutory deadline is mandatory and that postponing the motion to a later term would be nugatory, because the motion discharges by operation of law if the term expires without a ruling.
- Headnote 12
The Court observed that congressional statutes limit the common‑law jurisdiction and that the territorial legislature may validly restrict the right to a new trial through procedural time limits without violating constitutional guarantees.
Opinion
delivered the opinion of the court.
This is an appeal from a judgment of the Supreme Court of 'the Territory of Arizona dismissing an appeal because taken too late. The appellees recovered a sum from the appellant in the court of first instance, and after judgment was entered the appellant moved for a new trial. The judge who tried the case, being unable to attend,' made an order in chambers continuing the motion to another term. At a later term, after several similar continuances, the inotion was overruled, and the appellant then appealed to the Supreme Court of the Territory. These events took place before the passage of the Arizona Revised Statutes of 1901. (See par. 1479.) It is assumed that the appeal was too late if the judgment became final at the term when it was. rendered, Revised Statutes of Arizona, 1887, par. 849, and we may assume further that the ground of dismissal was the paragraph of the Revised Statutes,. requiring that motions for new trials “shall be determined at the term-of the court at which the motion shall be made,” R. S, 1887, par. 837, and the further provision of par. 842. By the latter, as amended in 1891, “when upon motion a new trial'is denied,” a review by the Supreme Court is provided for, and it then is enacted that “in case there shall be no ruling on said motion for a new trial during the term at which it was hied then said motion shall be denied and the questions that may have been raised thereby'shall be subject to review by the Supreme Court as if said motion had been overruled and exceptions thereto reserved and entered on the minutes of the court.” Acts of 1891,-No. 49, p. 69. ■
The Arizona par. 837 is copied from a similar section in the Texas code. Act of May 13, 1846, § 112, Hartley’s Dig, Tex. Code, Art. 766, 1 Sayles, Texas Civil Stats. Art. 1374 [1372], Long before its adoption in Arizona the latter section had been construed in- Texas as mandatory and as discharging a motion by operation of law if not. acted upon at the sanie term. It was held to put it out'of the power of the court-to postpone the motion for. a new trial to the next term and then to act upon it. If the requirement could be avoided by a continuance it would be made almost nugatory. McKean v. Ziller, 9 Texas., 58; Bullock v. Ballew, 9 Texas, 498; Bass v. Hays, 38 Texas, 128. When a statute is taken in this way from another, even a foreign, State, it generally is-presumed to be adopted with the construction which it has received. Tucker v. Oxley, 5 Cranch, 34, 42; Henrietta Mining and Milling Co, v. Gardner, 173 U. S. 123,130; Commonwealth v. Hartnett, 3 Gray, 450. See Coulam v. Doull, 133 U. S. 216. On this ground as well as that of the meaning of the words, the act had been construed ms in Texas by the Supreme Court of Arizona. Ruff v. Hand, 24 Pac. Rep. 257. In view of the history of the seer tion we shall spend no more time upon the question. Even were it more doubtful, we are of opinion that the amendment of 1891 to par. 842 makes the meaning' plain. The words “then [necessarily after the end of. the term] said motion shall be denied,” show that the motion is disposed of at the end of the term. Furthermore they do not mean that an order must be made out of term because of the failure to make an order within it, but mean that the motion shall be barred by the lapse of time, adopting the decision of the year before in Ruff v. Hand, and save an exception as if the motion had been denied by the court. The amendment assumes- or enacts that the motion is to be deemed overruled at the end of the term, and has for its object to give the party an exception in case he appeals from the judgment, so that the propriety of granting the motion, may be reviewed along with the other matters brought before, the Supreme Court. See Spicer v. Simms, 57 Pac. Rep. 610. 610 .
It is urged that at least the statute cannot be meant to operate when the postponement is for the convenience of the court, and the case is likened to those where a judgment or order is entered nunc pro tunc in order to prevent a loss of rights through a delay caused by the court itself. But there is no need of an exception in such a case. The party’s rights are saved but transferred for consideration to a higher court, and were it otherwise we should hesitate to read the exception into such absolute words.
It is said that by the foregoing construction the legislature attempts an unconstitutional assumption of judicial functions. But this is a mistake, both in form and substance. In form because the legislature does not direct a judgment but merely removes an obstacle, to a judgment already entered. (We need not consider whether a different construction would be adopted if the statute dealt with the time for entering judgments.) In substance, because we no more can doubt the power of the legislature to enact a statute of limitations for motions for a new trial than we can doubt its. power to enact such a statute for the bringing of an action. It'may be questioned whether there would be any constitutional objection to a law making the original judgment final and .doing ¿way with new trials altogether. “Rehearings, new trials are not essential to due process of law, either in judicial or administrative proceedings.” Pittsburg, Cincinnati, Chicago & St. Louis Ry. v. Backus, 154 U. S. 421, 426. See Montana Co. v. St. Louis Mining & Milling Co., 152 U. S. 160, 171. The statute did not deal with the past or purport to grant or refuse a new trial in a case or cases then pending, but performed the proper legislative function of laying down a rule for the future in a matter as' to which it had authority to lay down rules. Whether the attempt , to grant a review of the motion in case of an appeal or writ óf error wás valid is not before us. But certainly it does not seem an extraordinary stretch of legislative power to say that if the right to have a motion considered is lost in the lower court by lapse of time, the motion may be considered on appeal. There is no judgment by the legislature but simply a qualification of. the time limit if the case goes up.
Finally, it is argued that the sections construed, as we construe them are inconsistent with the grant of common law jurisdiction to the courts by Congress. Rev. Stat. §§ 1868, 1908. It is said that the right to grant new trials was a well recognized incident of common law jurisdiction, and that it cannot be taken away or cut down by the territorial legislature. In view of the provision in § 1866, that the jurisdiction given by § 1908 “shall be limited by law,” and indeed apart from it, we should hesitate to say that the territorial legislature was prevented by the grant of common law jurisdiction, in general words, from' doing away with new trials altogether. A rule of practice like this does not touch jurisdiction in any proper sense. ' Ferris v. Higley, 20 Wall. 375, cited by the appellant, has no application. Apart from other differences, that was a casé of an attempt to confer original jurisdiction in civil and criminal cases, both in chancery and common law, upon tfye probate courts. We certainly see nothing to prohibit the local legislature from making this not unusual or unreasonable rule. See Hornbuckle v. Toombs, 18 Wall. 648; Bent v. Thompson, 138 U. S. 114; Greely v. Winsor, 1 So. Dak. 618, 631.
' Judgment affirmed.