Rainey v. W. R. Grace & Co.

Background

A party appealing an admiralty case caused printed copies of the record and an index to be produced under the Act of February 13, 1911 and a lower court rule, then filed a certified copy in the appeals court. The appeals court required a separate clerk’s fee (25 cents per printed page) for preparing, indexing, supervising, and distributing the record. The appeals court asked this Court whether it could hear the case on the printed copies without collecting that fee and whether the 1911 law effectively set aside the earlier fee rule.

Reasoning

The Court compared the 1911 law with earlier statutes and the fee table the Supreme Court had set in 1898. The 1911 law was meant to reduce appeal expenses by allowing certified printed records to be used instead of costly written transcripts and by prescribing the form and number of printed copies. Because the lower court’s rule had provided for printing and indexing and the required printed transcripts were filed under the 1911 law, the Court found it inconsistent to allow the appeals court clerk to collect the same fee again. The Court held that the later law displaced the prior fee rule to the extent they conflicted.

Real world impact

The decision means litigants who provide the printed records required by the 1911 law and a lower-court rule cannot be charged duplicate indexing and printing fees by the appeals court clerk. That reduces the cost of taking appeals in such cases and supports the statute’s purpose of lowering expense for parties using printed records.