Archer v. State

Bryan, J., delivered tbe opinion of the Court, as follows, on tbe motion made on behalf of the State to remand the foregoing cause for anew trial: After the opinion in affirmance of this judgment had been delivered, a motion was made in behalf of the State ■ to remand the cause for a new trial. The motion was founded on the twentieth section of the fifth Article of the Code of Public General Laws. This section enacts that “in all cases where judgments shall be reversed or affirmed by tbe Court of Appeals, and it shall appear to tbe Court that a new trial ought to be had, such new trial shall be awarded. ” Whether “a new trial ought to ⁴³³ be liad” in any given case must be determined by the rules and principles of law. The Court must obtain from legal sources the materials on which its judgment is to be founded; that is, from sources of information which the law authorizes and empowers it to seek and examine; the conclusion is then deduced by the law according to established maxims.

The law is a system ■of reason which administers justice according to rules which long experience has shown to be best adapted to secure this end in the vast majority of cases. When a result is reached by the application of these rules, it is the duty of Judges to pronounce the decision without reference to their private sentiments, or private information. Justice would indeed be precarious if from sudh cause, or from any other cause, its administration were not conducted according to fixed, steady, established and prescribed canons of decision. This suit was brought on the official bond given by Archer in February, 1886, and the breach alleged was, that between the time when this bond was given and the eighteenth day of November, 1889, he fraudulently appropriated to his own use large numbers of the bonds and securities belonging to the State, and in his possession as Treasurer.

The Circuit Court ruled that the bond was liable for all defalcations committed between these dates, and left it as a question to the jury to find their amount on the evidence in the cause. The jury rendered a verdict for sixty thousand dollars. A motion for a new trial was made by the State, but the motion Avas overruled by a divided Court, and the verdict sustained. An appeal Avas taken by the defendants to this Court, and we have approved the rulings of the Court beloAv, Avhich held that the defalcations up to November the eighteenth, 1889, were covered by the bond; and we have affirmed the judgment.

There was an exception in behalf of the State to the refusal of the Court to ⁴³⁴ admit certain testimony, and an appeal on that ground. This matter will be noticed hereafter; but it does not affect the question which we are now considering. If the verdict was erroneous, it is not within the capacity of this Court to correct the error. We have no power to revise the verdicts of juries.

The law confides this jurisdiction exclusively to the trial Courts. They have the right to set aside a verdict if they believe it to be contrary to law, or unwarranted by the evidence. But if they permit it to stand, we are obliged to recognize it as correct. We have absolutely no alternative in the matter.

Our functions are confined to a review of the questions of law decided by the Court below. This case is'then like many others which are constantly occurring; a judgment has been rendered against defendants, and on their appeal it has been affirmed. The plaintiff having deliberately sued on the bond for certain specified defalcations, and having successfully maintained its legal positions with respect to the liability of the bond to the extent alleged; and having taken the verdict of the jury on the evidence offered to prove the matters of fact in controversy; and the judgment of the trial Court in his favor having been affirmed by the Court of last resort, it now moves for a new trial for 'the purpose of comprehending in this suit additional averments with respect to facts which were as well known to it when the suit was brought as they are at present. We must pause and consider carefully the grounds of this motion, before we give our assent to it.

We may well inquire into the rights of the defendants in this behalf; and we may well ask whether the just limit of litigation has not been reached. Expedit reipublicae ui sit finis litium. It has been said that “Justice requires that every cause be once'fairly and impartially tried; but that having been once so tried, all litigation of that question, and between those parties, should be closed forever." No ⁴³⁵ declaration of principle could be more just, and none bas received more universal approval. The plaintiff ought to have included in the suit on the bond all matters of liability which could have been litigated in that suit.

The law does not allow two suits, when the whole subject' of controversy might have been settled in one. In State vs. Brown and Brown, Trustees, &c., 64 Md., 204 , we said, quoting from the Supreme Court of the United States, in reference to the conclusive effect of a judgment in a former suit: “It extends not only to the questions of fact and of law, which were decided in the former suit, but also to the grounds of recovery, or defence, which might have been, but were not presented.” The plaintiff’s counsel proceeded on the theory that defalcations after the eighteenth day of November, 1889, were not recoverable in this suit; and they brought suit for them on Archer’s second bond. This Court Held that the second bond was void, and that the bond on Avhich the jjresent suit was brought was responsible for Archer’s malfeasance until his third appointment and qualification in January, 1890. The theories of the opposing counsel in this cause were in conflict on almost every question involved in the case; there was contestation and strife at every step of its progress.

The result of the litigation has been a disappointment to both sides. We have not sustained the views of the plaintiff’s counsel in respect to the liability of the second bond. But we cannot regard this as a reason for awarding a new trial, in a case, which has been regularly conducted to a final judgment in this Court. Counsel elect the grounds on which they will rest their case, present it in the mode approved by their own judgment, and adduce such testimony within their reach as they see fit to submit to the jury.

They are frequently disappointed in the iesult of the suit. But we do not see that the consequences should be visited on defendants without some default on ⁴³⁶ their part. It is a serious penalty to impose on them the burden, expense, and vexation of continued litigation. It has been said in the brief of the plaintiff’s counsel that the verdict for sixty thousand dollars in this caséis “utterly irrational and indefensible,” and that the refusal of the Court below to grant a new trial is a good and sufficient reason for this Court to exercise its “undoubtedpower,” and to perform its “high duty” of awarding a new trial.

And we are solemnly adjured to act upon what we c ‘judicially know to be the truth, and to give effect to the plain text of our rule.” And the following extraordinary statement is made: “We lay before you the records of your own Court, and the judgments which you have rendered upon them, and from them we say that the truth stares you in the face, and makes it appear as clear as light, that such a practical perversion of justice as a* judgment for $60,000 for Archer’s confessed embezzlement of $125,000, from 2nd February, 1886, down to 30th January, 1890, should not stand as a sample of Maryland justice in such a melancholy and memorable incident in our State history; but that a new trial ought to be had to rescue the administration of our 1-aw from such a lasting stigma.” We can make due allowance for the earnestness of counsel in" behalf of their clients, and for the depth of their convictions produced by the warmth of their zeal. It. is our part to decide questions before us without any of the excitement, which naturally belongs to the efficient discharge of the duties of the advocate. The verdict in the case comes before us with all the sanctions which the law can give to any verdict. It was duly rendered in a legal and constitutional manner, and was approved in a legal and constitutional manner.

Mf the Circuit Court had given the jury erroneous instructions on matters of law, the judgment would have been reversed; but we have no power, whatever, over a verdict regularly rendered upon ⁴³⁷ correct legal instructions. No matter what private opinions we might form as individuals on the merits of the case, we are constrained by our official duty to pronounce the judgment on this verdict which the law has pronounced upon it. We trust that this Court will never be found under the exigencies of any case, supposed or real, attempting to exercise forbidden jurisdiction. The plaintiff’s brief speaks of Archer’s confessed embezzlement of a hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars.

We do not see in the record of any of the cases which have been before us any confession of any kind relating to the amount of embezzlement; on the contrary there was vigorous conflict and controversy on this question, as on every other one involved in the cause. The evidence on the subject was fairly submitted to the jury, but they refused to find according to the arguments of the plaintiff’s counsel, and their verdict was sustained by the Court.. If we look at the record of the suit on Archer’s second bond, we find that judgment was rendered for defalcations committed between the eighteenth day of November, 1889, and the thirtieth day of January, 1890, at which, time Archer was qualified under his third appointment as Treasurer of the State of Maryland, and that the amount of the judgment was $12,857.55. This Court held that the second bond was invalid, and that the first bond was a security for all defalcations up to the thirtieth of January, 1890.

We thus see that two suits have been brought and prosecuted to a final judgment in the Court of last resort for the purpose of' enforcing a liability which was enforceable in the first suit. The object of the motion in this case is to enable the plaintiff by amending its pleadings to try the whole question of defalcation up to January 30th, 1890; that is, to try again the same questions, which have already been tried in the two suits which have been determined by final judgments in this Court. The ⁴³⁸ result would be, in effect, three suits for the decision of a controversy, which was properly and legitimately, determinable in one suit. The suit on the first bond was tried without the least error in law; everything demanded in that suit has duly and legally passed into judgment.

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