O'Docherty v. Archer

• Decision Date: 01 January 1852
• Citation: 9 Tex. 295
• Parties: O'DOCHERTY v. ARCHER.
• Court: Texas Supreme Court

9 Tex. 295

O'DOCHERTY

v.ARCHER.

Supreme Court of Texas.

1852.

There is no mode of revising the judgment of the County Court under the statute (Hart. Dig., 919) in cases of contested elections for county officers. It is therefore conclusive.

Where the District Court properly dismissed a certiorari for want of jurisdiction in a case of contested election, and proceeded to affirm the judgment of the inferior court, it was held that the affirmance was merely nugatory, and afforded no cause for appeal.

Appeal from San Patricio. The appellant obtained a certiorari to bring up to the District Court a case decided by the County Court of San Patricio county, in the matter of a contested election between himself and the appellee for the office of chief justice of the county, for the purpose of obtaining a trial of the case anew in the District Court. The court declined to try the case anew, but proceeded to revise the judgment upon the record of the proceedings in the County Court, dismissed the certiorari, and affirmed the judgment. The plaintiff in the certiorari appealed.

Harris & Pease, for appellee.

WHEELER, J.

The statute which confers upon the County Court jurisdiction to try contested elections for county officers gives no appeal from its decisions. (Hart. Dig., art. 919.) In constituting the tribunal, it was optional with the legislature to give an appeal or not, as might best comport with their views of public policy. As no appeal was given, the inference must be that none was intended. The terms of office of these officers are of so short duration that in many cases the term would expire before the right could be finally determined, if the parties were allowed to litigate their respective claims through successive appeals to the court of last resort. Not only public policy, but the real good of the parties themselves who are immediately affected by the decision, demands that controversies of the character of the present should be determined with the least possible delay and expense. Such considerations doubtless induced the legislature to confer the jurisdiction to decide in contested elections of county officers on the County Court, which from its organization can hear and determine the controversy at once, rather than upon the District Court, whose sessions are less frequent, and where the decision may be delayed by continuances from term to term for years. If it had been the intention that the District Court should take...