Dunnagan v. Shaffer

• Decision Date: 12 March 1887
• Citation: 3 S.W. 522
• Parties: DUNNAGAN <I>v.</I> SHAFFER and others.
• Court: Arkansas Supreme Court

3 S.W. 522

DUNNAGANv.

SHAFFER and others.

Supreme Court of Arkansas.

March 12, 1887.

Appeal from circuit court, Green county.

L. L. Mack, for appellant. N. W. Norton, for appellees.

BATTLE, J.

Shaffer, Swartz & Co. recovered a judgment, before a justice of the peace, against D. A. Smith, and sued out an execution thereon. The constable to whom the execution was directed levied it upon certain personal property of Smith, and sold it, and William Dunnagan became the purchaser. Shaffer, Swartz & Co. then applied to the justice to set aside the sale, on the ground it was illegal. Ten days' notice of the application having first been given, the justice heard the application, and set aside the sale. William Dunnagan then filed in the Green circuit court a petition for certiorari, reciting therein the foregoing facts, and asked that the order setting aside the sale be vacated. Defendants filed a demurrer to the petition, which the court sustained, and dismissed the petition; and petitioner appealed. The only question in the case is, did the justice of the peace have authority to set aside the sale?

In Jones v. Reed, 1 Johns. Cas. 20, it is laid down that "it is a clear and salutary principle that inferior jurisdictions, not proceeding according to the course of the common law, are confined strictly to the authority given them. They can take nothing by implication, but must show the power expressly given them in every instance. The sound rule of construction in respect to the courts of justices of the peace is to be liberal in reviewing their proceedings as far as respects regularity and form, and strict in holding them to the exact limits of jurisdiction prescribed to them by the statute." Wight v. Warner, 1 Doug. 384.

In Whitesides v. Kershaw, 44 Ark. 380, this court, in speaking of the jurisdiction of justices of the peace, said: "At common law they had no civil jurisdiction. The grant of this authority is American, and results from positive law. With us their jurisdiction is derived from the constitution, and they possess only such jurisdiction as is expressly given, coupled with the incidental powers necessary to carry it into effect. All jurisdiction was parceled out and distributed by the constitution, and the jurisdiction not expressly granted to some other court, or authorized to be granted, is reserved to the circuit courts. The justices of the peace take nothing by implication, except what is necessary to make effective their express powers."

In People v. Delaware Common Pleas, 18 Wend. 558, it was held a justice of the peace, after having entered in his docket the amount for which he had rendered judgment against a defendant, and after having informed the parties, had no power to alter the same by reducing the amount, although he subsequently discovered that, in adding up the several items which he considered the plaintiff entitled to recover, he had made a mistake by putting down the sum total at...