Ex parte Williams

• Decision Date: 29 June 1901
• Citation: 65 S.W. 711,69 Ark. 457
• Parties: EX PARTE WILLIAMS
• Court: Arkansas Supreme Court

65 S.W. 711

69 Ark. 457

EX PARTE WILLIAMS

Supreme Court of Arkansas

June 29, 1901

Prohibition to St. Francis Chancery Court EDWARD D ROBERTSON, Chancellor.

STATEMENT BY THE COURT.

The legislature in 1901 passed an act dividing Woodruff county into two judicial districts, one called the Northern district and the other the Southern district. The act provided that the circuit and chancery courts for the Northern district should be held at Augusta, the county seat as now provided by law, and it further provided that those courts should be held for the Southern district at the town of Cotton Plant beginning on the days named in the act. But the day named in the act for the holding of the chancery court for the Southern district at Cotton Plant is the same as that provided by the statute for the holding of the chancery court at Forrest City. The petitioner, W. E. Williams, being a defendant in an action pending in the St. Francis chancery court, and being of the opinion that the act providing for a chancery court at Cotton Plant for the Southern district of Woodruff county on the same day as that fixed by the statute for holding such court at Forrest City had the effect to take St. Francis county out of the fifth chancery district, filed his petition in this case to prevent the chancellor of that district from taking jurisdiction of and trying said cause. To this petition a response has been filed by the chancellor.

Petition refused and case dismissed.

John Gatling and S. R. Mann, for petitioners.

Prohibition is the proper remedy. 48 Ark. 227; 2 S.W. 843. The prior act must give way to the subsequent act. 46 Ark. 229; 49 Ark. 110. The term of court is regarded in law as one day. 12 Am. & Eng. Enc. Law, 227. The act is not unconstitutional. Const. 1874, art. 7, § 15; 49 Ark. 110.

Norton & Prewett, for respondent.

Suggestion was the initial writ. 4 Ark. 542. Prohibition is a matter of right, where the court has no jurisdiction, and the defendant has no other remedy. 116 U.S. 167; 11 Notes, 22. Before creation of chancery districts the circuit court had jurisdiction in matters of equity. Const. 1874, art. 7, § 15. Courts of different counties in same circuit may sit at the same time. 32 S.E. 271; 6 Rand. 704; 2 Gratt. 595; 1 W.Va. 329. If not impossible in fact, it should not be in law. 25 S.E. 871; 60 Ark. 343; 30 S.W. 421. The spirit of the constitution goes for nothing. 48 Ark. 229.

OPINION

RIDDICK, J., (after stating the facts).

The question raised by the petition filed in this case and the response thereto is whether the provisions of the act dividing Woodruff county into two districts (Act May 3, 1901) had the effect to take St. Francis county out of the fifth chancery district, and deprive the chancellor of that district of the right to hold a chancery court for that county.

The statute creating the fifth chancery district (Acts 1897, p. 93, as amended by Acts 1899, p. 118) made the counties of Woodruff and St. Francis a part thereof, and provided that terms of the chancery court should be held in each of said counties, commencing on certain days named in the act. The days named for the convening of the court in St. Francis county are the second Mondays of May and December of each year. Now, the act afterwards passed dividing Woodruff county into two districts provided that the chancery court for the Southern district should be held at Cotton Plant on the second Mondays of May and December, the same days fixed by the former statute for the convening of the chancery court in St. Francis county. This was, no doubt, the result of inadvertence on the part of the legislature, for it has been several times held that under our constitution two circuit courts for the same circuit cannot be convened and held on the same day. Parker v. Sanders, 46 Ark. 229; State v. Williams, 48 Ark. 227, 2 S.W. 843; Ex parte Jones, 49 Ark. 110, 4 S.W. 639.

If these decisions are correct, we think it follows, for the same reasons, that two chancery courts for different counties in the same chancery district cannot be convened and held on the same day when they are to be held by the same chancellor. This being so, if we hold that portion of the act dividing Woodruff county into two districts which requires a term of chancery court to be convened and held in Cotton Plant in that county on the second Mondays of May and December to be valid, then no chancery court can be held in St. Francis county, for those are the days fixed for the convening of the court in that county. Parker v. Sanders, 46 Ark. 229.

It is said that jurisdiction to try chancery cases in St. Francis county would in that event revert to the circuit court. But the legislature having created a chancery district and made St. Francis county a part of it, we do not think that the act dividing Woodruff county into two districts can be held to have restored jurisdiction to the circuit court of St Francis county to try equity cases. To so hold would be to give an effect to the act altogether different from that intended by the legislature. As the circuit court cannot...