§ 9-7-2.When facts referred to auditor; on application and notice; on court’s own motion

This section gives a superior court judge two separate paths to bring an auditor into an equitable case. Under the first, either party can apply for a referral, but only after giving notice to the opposing side. Under the second, the judge can act alone, referring facts to an auditor on the judge’s own motion whenever the facts and circumstances of the case call for it, regardless of what either party wants.

Note the referral does not have to cover the whole case. The text allows the judge to send “any part of the facts” to the auditor, so a judge can carve out the tangled portion of a dispute — a complicated accounting, a disputed series of transactions — while keeping the rest of the case on the regular docket.

Referral does not remove the case from the judge’s control. The auditor investigates and reports back, and the judge (and sometimes a jury) still resolves any disagreement with that report through the exceptions process the later sections of this chapter describe.