Bruce v. Street, 4-7283.

• Decision Date: 06 March 1944
• Docket Number: No. 4-7283.,4-7283.
• Citation: 178 S.W.2d 489
• Parties: BRUCE et al. v. STREET.
• Court: Arkansas Supreme Court

Page 489

178 S.W.2d 489

BRUCE et al. v. STREET.

No. 4-7283.

Supreme Court of Arkansas.

March 6, 1944.

Appeal from Chancery Court, Northern District, Sharp County; J. Paul Ward, Chancellor.

Action by Eagle Street, executor, against C. W. Bruce and others to eject the defendant named from realty in respect of which the dividing line between plaintiff and defendant was in dispute. From the decree, defendants appeal.

Reversed and remanded.

T. J. Carter, of Evening Shade, and Sidney Kelley, of Hardy, for appellants.

Shelby C. Ferguson, of Ash Flat, and Smith & Judkins, of Walnut Ridge, for appellee.

GRIFFIN SMITH, Chief Justice.

As a matter of substantive law,¹ appellant is correct. The Chancery Court for Sharp County, sitting as the decree recites, "in lawful session" in the Northern District, did not have jurisdiction to try title to lands in the Southern District.

We do not reach merits of the case. Street sought by an action in Circuit Court, Southern District, to eject Bruce from realty in respect of which the dividing line between plaintiff and defendant was in dispute.

By Act 39, approved February 27, 1893, Sharp County was divided into judicial districts. Jurisdiction of the Circuit, Chancery and Probate Courts was territorially circumscribed.² In 1933, Act 110, approved March 16 it was provided that "* * * jurisdiction of the [Circuit] Court sitting [at Hardy or Evening Shade] shall be coextensive with the entire County." There was no mention of Chancery or Probate Courts.

Street began his action in Circuit Court at Evening Shade. It was transferred to Hardy; then, by consent, removed to Chancery and tried. On appeal the jurisdictional question is raised for the first time.

Legislation creating judicial districts within a county has been upheld.³

The holding in Williams v. Montgomery, 179 Ark. 611, 17 S.W.2d 875, 876, was: "The requirement as to the district in the county in which the suit may be brought is a mere personal privilege granted to the parties which may be waived like any other privilege of personal right of this character."

In the Montgomery case Williams sued for personal injuries. There were two defendants, each of whom lived in the Northern District of Arkansas County. Complaint was filed in the Southern District. Under the dividing act, defendants were not required to answer in the district other than that of residence. Chief Justice Hart, who wrote the opinion, cited Saliba v. Saliba, 178 Ark. 250, 11 S.W.2d 774, 61 A.L.R. 1348, where it was held that a transitory action might be maintained in either of the two districts of Mississippi County. But, said the Chief Justice, the defendant in the Saliba case did not move to quash summons.

In the cause before us the action was not transitory. It involves title to land in the Southern District; and since Circuit Court (which had concurrent jurisdiction in respect of the Northern and Southern Districts) transferred to Chancery in the Northern District, it follows that the decree was (in the borrowed language of older writers) coram non judice. This being true, its prima facie force might have been avoided by petition to this Court for review by certiorari — a relatively inexpensive procedure. If the jurisdictional question had been...