Fuller v. Colfax County

• Decision Date: 01 January 1882
• Citation: 14 F. 177
• Parties: FULLER and others v. COUNTY OF COLFAX.
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of Nebraska

14 F. 177

FULLER and others v. COUNTY OF COLFAX.

United States Circuit Court, D. Nebraska.

November Term, 1882

Mr Wakeley, for plaintiff.

Mr Munger, for defendant.

DUNDY D.J.

This cause was removed into this court from a state court held within and for Colfax county. The defendant moves to remand the same, for the reason that the suit was removed from an appellate court and not from the one in which the suit was brought. If this be true it must, of necessity, be decisive of the motion.

In considering the motion two questions arise-- First, is a board of county commissioners a court within the meaning of the removal acts of congress; and, second, is a mere claim for damages for right of way for a public road, presented to the county board, a suit within the meaning of the said removal acts, so long as the claim there remains for consideration.

The state law provides for paying for the right of way necessary in locating all public roads. If damages are sustained by the owners of land through which a road is located, the county is primarily liable therefor, and the manner of making the claim as well as the mode of making the payment is here perfectly well understood. After the location of the road all that seems to be necessary for the injured party to do is to make known to the county board the fact that damages are claimed for the right of way. If the claim is thought to be just and reasonable the county board allows it, and draws warrants on the county treasury for the amount of damages awarded. If the claimant should be dissatisfied with the amount of damages so awarded him, he can appeal to the district court of the proper county, where the case is to be tried de novo. Thus it will be seen that the remedy provided by law in cases like the present one is alike speedy, efficacious, inexpensive.

The plaintiffs were damaged, as they claim, in consequence of a public road being located through their lands; and they presented to the county board a claim in the sum of $5,000 therefor. The board reduced the claim, or sum allowed, to $250, and the claimants appealed to the district court, all of which was done in strict accordance with the law. In presenting a claim to the county board for allowance, no formal proceedings are at all necessary, no pleadings of any sort are required to be filed, no process issued for any purpose whatever connected with the matter, and no formal judgment follows either the rejection or allowance of a claim by the board. The claim when so made, is simply audited, allowed, or rejected, as justice and reason seem to require. In case of an appeal to the district court, the appeal is docketed, and pleadings are filed, and the cause then in all respects proceeds in the usual and ordinary way. The cause is then, in every sense of the term, in a court, and is also, then, in every sense of the term, a suit.

Now what is usually understood by the words 'court' and 'suit,' where we find them in legislative enactments or in legal proceedings? Blackstone says a 'court is a place wherein justice is judicially administered. ' To administer justice judicially, there must be a judge, and usually, though not always, there are also others officers, such as clerk and sheriff or marshal. That also implies the right to issue compulsory process to bring parties before the court, so that jurisdiction may be acquired over the person or property which forms the subject-matter of the controversy. To administer justice judicially, two parties to a controversy...