Innes v. Miller

*Innes v. Miller. Award. it is not sufficient cause for setting aside a report, that the referees, after settling the principles of the report, asked the plaintiff if he would agree that a quarter’s rent which had accrued after the action brought, should be taken into the settlement. Referees haying settled their minds with regard to their report, sent for the plaintiff, and asked him whether he would agree that a quarter’s rent, which accrued after the action brought, should be taken into the settlement, and the defendant credited for it, which would have made the balance in favor of the latter. This the plaintiff refused to comply with, and withdrew, without being asked another question, or saying anything further upon the subject. A motion was now made to set aside the report. [MAJORITY — By the Court.] By the Court. Referees ought to proceed, not only so as to do justice, but to avoid the appearance of injustice ; lest a precedent should be established, which might afterwards be perverted to a bad use. Misbehavor is, therefore, a reason for the court to interpose and set aside a report, no less than partiality and corruption. Referees, however, are allowed greater latitude in their proceedings than juries. They are not equally bound to time and place, nor to the same strictness of method in receiving testimony. A reference would be of little service, if a report were liable to be set aside, for an irregularity so small as that mentioned by the counsel, in the case of Baron's Lessee v. The Proprietaries, for the South street lots, that of merely handing in a paper to the jury, by mistake, which was only a copy of an original produced at the trial. Suppose, in the present instance, the referees had adjourned, and in the intermediate time, meeting Innes in the street, should make the proposal mentioned to him — surely, this would not set aside the report. It is true, that the manner in which it was done, gave room for some suspicion, and the defendant had a right to presume, that all was not fairly conducted. But the fact is satisfactorily explained by the referees, and we do not think it such misbehavior as will invalidate the report. Therefore, Let judgment be entered for the plaintiff, See Hagner v. Musgrove, Hollingsworth v. Leiper, and Chaplin v. Kirwan, ante, p. 83 161, 187; and the notes to those cases.