Currier v. Mueller

• Decision Date: 04 February 1890
• Citation: 44 N.W. 555,79 Iowa 316
• Parties: CURRIER v. MUELLER ET AL.
• Court: Iowa Supreme Court

79 Iowa 316

44 N.W. 555

CURRIER

v.MUELLER ET AL.

Supreme Court of Iowa.

Feb. 4, 1890.

Appeal from district court, Lee county; J. M. CASEY, Judge.

Proceeding to punish for contempt. From a judgment discharging defendants the plaintiff appeals.Newman & Blake, for appellant.

S. M. Casey and T. H. Johnson, for appellees.

GRANGER, J.

This is a proceeding to punish for the violation of an injunction issued under the law for the suppression of intemperance. At the hearing in the district court the defendants were discharged; and, the plaintiff having brought this appeal, a motion is made to dismiss on the ground that this court has no jurisdiction in such cases on appeal.

Disconnected entirely from its relation to the law regulating the sale of intoxicating liquors, and the question before us seems to have been fully settled by prior adjudication. Speaking of the question thus disconnected, we may look to the case of Congregational Church v. City of Muscatine, 2 Iowa, 69. As in this case, that was a proceeding to punish for a contempt in disobeying an injunction; and the case is further like this in the fact that the party charged with contempt was on the hearing discharged, and the appeal was from the order of discharge. In that case the law, both common and statutory, as to proceedings for contempt, received consideration; and, under statutory provisions as to proceeding for contempt like those at the present time, the right of appeal was denied. The Code of 1851 contains this: “Sec. 1606. No appeal lies to an order to punish for a contempt; but the proceedings may, in proper cases, be taken to a higher court for revision by certiorari. ” That section is identical with the present Code, § 3499, except the words “to an order” read now “from an order.” In that case the court cited to some extent, and reviewed, the general statutes regulating appeals, both civil and criminal, and announced the conclusion of the court in these words: “In any view of the case in which we have been able to see it, we are constrained to the conclusion that the special provision contained in section 1606, denying an appeal from an order to punish for contempt, is controlling of the general provisions regulating appeals, and extends to contempts by a disobedience of an injunction as well as of other process.” A significant feature of the holding is that it makes the section (1606) “controlling of the general provisions of the statutes regulaing appeals,” and no subsequent legislation has attempted to change its force. There have since been changes in the general statutes governing appeals, but nothing which is expressly or by implication designed to affect the statute (section 3499) providing for a review of proceedings for contempt. In the case of Lindsay v. District Court, 75...