Green v. Ross
Green v. Ross
Opinion of the Court
delivering the opinion.
This cause comes to this Court on exceptions to the decision of the Court below, making the award of the arbitrator the judgment of the Court. The causes pending between the several parties in this voluminous record were referred by the order of Court with the consent of parties, to the arbitrament and award of the Hon. Absalom H. Chappell. He was to pass on all the questions of law and fact, and also on all the equities involved. The right of any party interested to appeal to the Supreme Court from the decision of the arbitrator on any question of law or equity was reserved. No right of appeal from his finding of the facts was reserved. The majority of the Court is of opinion that the arbitrator, having found the facts as he did, pronounced correctly the law and equity of the causes arising on those facts as found and that the most of the errors, if not every error assigned in the special assignments, when examined, will be found to be based on the finding of the facts.
It follows, as a matter of course, that if the errors are assigned on the finding of the facts alone, there is nothing that this Court can consider, and that the judgment must be affirmed.
I doubted in regard to two matters determined by the arbitrator, and I am not satisfied that he determined correctly in regard to them. The first is in regard to the State printing. I think there is a difference between a contract with the State for the public printing, and a contract for the execution of the job after it is engaged. A member of a printing firm may be chosen State printer. The acceptance-
The arbitrator proceeded to decree precisely as though he had found that Ross was interested in the contract, and not in the job only. If that was his finding, his decree is in accordance with my opinion of the law. That was certainly the interpretation of the majority of the Court of the finding. The language of the arbitrator is, “that this job of State printing was embraced in the partnership as much as any other job which had been secured or engaged by Ray before the partnership, but were not commenced or executed until afterwards.” According to the words of the award, Ross was interested in the job; according to the decree, to make it right, he must have been, in the opinion of the arbitrator, interested in the contract also. The majority of the Court may have construed the finding of the arbitrator correctly, that Ross was interested in that contract; but if that finding, being of a fact, be wrong, this Court, I conclude, has no power to correct it.
The other point on which I had some difficulty grows out of a decision of this Court on the effect of the lien of a judgment against one of the partners individually, on the interest of that partner in the property of the firm of which he is a member. If it be a lien on that interest, so as to entitle the purchaser of it, when sold, to take it divested of a lien for the firm debts, not reduced to judgment, (beingjudgments
I think that the decree of the arbitrator is in conformity with the old rule; but I do not see how it can stand consistently with the ruling of this Court to which I have adverted, and which I am not calling in question.
Judgment affirmed.
Case-law data current through December 31, 2025. Source: CourtListener bulk data.