Burr v. Des Moines Railroad & Navigation Co.

Citations

• 1 U.S. 99

Syllabus

<p>1. Although this court will give judgment, on error, upon an agreed statement of facts or case stated, if it he signed by counsel and spread upon the record at large, as part thereof, yet it will not do so, except upon that which is professionally and properly known as a case stated; that is to say, upon a ease which .states facts simply; not one which presents, instead of facts, eyidence from which facts may or may not be inferred.</p> <p>i. Legal presumption being in fayor of a judgment regularly rendered, the court, where it does not reverse, nor dismiss for want of jurisdiction, might, in regard to a case which it refused to consider on evidence Adduced, affirm simply. However, a case being before it, and having been argued on its merits, where counsel on both sides erroneously supposed that they had brought up a case stated, when in fact they brought up nothing but a mass of evidence, and where they erroneously supposed, also, that they would obtain an opinion and judgment of this court on the case as, by common consent, they presented it, — the court benignantly “ dismissed” it only; so leaving the parties at liberty to put the case, if they could, by agreement below, in a shape where it could be here reviewed:. But the dismission was with costs.</p>