§ 914.New Trial Ordered When No Photographic Report of Trial Transcribed Or Lost Or Destroyed

An appeal depends on a record, and the reporter's transcript is often the most important part of it — without it, a reviewing court often can't meaningfully evaluate what happened at trial. Section 914 addresses what happens when that transcript can't be produced through no fault of the parties. It applies when the right to a phonographic report of the trial was not waived, and it becomes impossible to have that report transcribed by a stenographic reporter as law or rule requires, because the reporter who worked the trial died or became disabled, or because that reporter's notes were lost or destroyed in whole or substantial part.

When those conditions are met, the trial court or a judge of it, or the reviewing court, has the power to set aside and vacate the judgment, order, or decree from which an appeal has been taken or is to be taken, and to order a new trial of the action or proceeding. The remedy is a fresh trial rather than an attempt to reconstruct a missing record, since a reconstructed record built without the reporter's own notes would rarely give the reviewing court a reliable basis for appellate review.