Ex parte Woodruff

• Decision Date: 30 June 1899
• Citation: 123 Ala. 99,26 So. 509
• Parties: EX PARTE WOODRUFF.
• Court: Alabama Supreme Court

26 So. 509

123 Ala. 99

EX PARTE WOODRUFF.

Supreme Court of Alabama

June 30, 1899

Application for mandamus by S.E. Woodruff to compel the judge of the city court of Talladega to vacate a decree. Denied.

Saml. Will John, for petitioner.

Knox Bowie & Dixon and Brown & Dryer, for respondent.

HARALSON J.

We have but recently said, consistent with the authorities on the subject, that the function of a writ of mandamus is to compel a subordinate court to hear and decide a controversy of which it has jurisdiction; or if the case has been heard, to render a judgment or enter a decree in a cause; but not to correct errors, or direct what particular judgment or decree shall be rendered; not to control but compel judicial action. But according to the decisions of this court, this is not the full limit of the writ, for as we have held, "if an order, or judgment, or decree, is made or rendered, which is not the subject of revision by appeal, or other revisory remedy and yet is erroneous, working injury to the party complaining, and there be no other legal remedy, adequate to the correction of the error and the prevention of the injury mandamus will be awarded; but the writ will not be granted when full and adequate relief can be had by appeal, writ of error or otherwise." Wilson v. Duncan, 114 Ala. 659, 21 So. 1017; Ex parte Tower Mfg. Co., 103 Ala. 415, 15 So. 836; Ex parte Hayes, 92 Ala. 120, 9 So. 156.

In the city court of Talladega, in the cause of Mary J. Adair et al. v. H. W. Phillips et al. the petitioner, S.E. Woodruff, being a party defendant, filed her answer as a cross bill under the statute, to which her adversaries demurred, and filed a motion to dismiss for want of equity. The motion to dismiss for want of equity was granted, and the cross bill was dismissed out of court. The petitioner now moves this court for a writ of mandamus to the judge of the city court of Talladega requiring him to set aside and vacate the said decree dismissing her said cross bill.

The petition is offensive to the rule upon which this court proceeds in awarding this writ. It asks us to control the judicial action of an inferior court and to set aside a decree which it had full authority and jurisdiction to render, and this, when the petitioner has a full and adequate remedy to correct, on appeal on the final determination of the cause, any error which the lower court may have committed in rendering said decree.

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