Garner v. Webster County

• Decision Date: 20 January 1902
• Citation: 31 So. 210,79 Miss. 565
• Court: Mississippi Supreme Court
• Parties: CHESTER M. GARNER v. WEBSTER COUNTY

31 So. 210

79 Miss. 565

CHESTER M. GARNER v. WEBSTER COUNTY

Supreme Court of Mississippi

January 20, 1902

October 1901

FROM the circuit court of Webster county. HON. JOHN R. ENOCHS Judge, presiding by exchange.

Garner appellant, was plaintiff in the court below; Webster county appellee, was defendant there.

At the December, 1899, meeting of the board of supervisors of Webster county, certain citizens of the county presented their petition to the board asking that proceedings be had to establish a part of said county into a stock law district. The board, acting under ch. 17 of the laws of 1897, passed an order declaring the lands described in the petition a stock law district, which stock law district is shaped and embraces the lands as shown by the following diagram:

[SEE DIAGRAM IN ORIGINAL]

At the November, 1900, meeting of said board of supervisors, Garner, the appellant here, who owned lands adjoining said stock law district, filed his petition with the board asking to be added to said stock law district. A protest was filed by Gunter, a citizen and freeholder of said county, against the granting of the prayer of Garner's petition, on the ground that the order of the board of supervisors establishing the original pretended stock law district to which Garner sought to be added was void on account of its irregular shape. Garner's petition was denied by the board. He then appealed to the circuit court, where the decision of the board of supervisors was affirmed, and from that judgment this appeal is prosecuted by him to the supreme court.

Application overruled.

Samuel Cooke, for appellant.

The board of supervisors is an inferior court of limited jurisdiction. They are created by law, and have no power except what is conferred by positive legislative enactment. Yet in this case they assumed the functions of an appellate court, attempted to review the judgment of a former term at a subsequent term, pass upon its validity, and virtually to vacate and set it aside. If the order of the board of December 7, 1899, was merely erroneous and voidable, they had no right or power to impeach it collaterally. Smith v Bradley, 6 Smed. & M., 179; Work v. Harper, 24 Miss. 517; Wall v. Wall, 28 Miss. 409.

Judgments of inferior courts are presumed to be correct. Lee v. Bennett, 31 Miss. 119; Casson v. Casson, 31 Miss. 578.

This presumption exists wherever there is a possible state of facts which would justify the judgment. Duncan v. McNeill, 31 Miss. 704.

This order was valid and binding until reversed by a court of review. Wall v. Wall, 28 Miss. 409.

The board of supervisors had no power to review this order or to sit in judgment upon its validity, because a court has no power over its own judgments at a subsequent term. McComb v. Ellett, 8 Smed. & M., 505.

A judgment entered at a subsequent term vacating a judgment rendered at a previous term, is itself void, though the judgment vacated be also void. Ib.

The board had, it seems, a twofold purpose: to vacate an existing judgment or order, and to deny appellant's petition, which they did on the ground that the former order was void.

The circuit court, reviewing this case on bills of exceptions, had no power to set aside the previous order of the board of December 7, 1899, unless it appeared by the record that such order was absolutely void. But it seems that the circuit court made the same collateral attack upon this order. Montgomery County v. State, 71. Miss. 153.

The validity of the order of the board of December 7, 1899, was not an issue before the board or circuit court. And if that order was valid, the board had no discretion in the matter of appellant's petition to be added to the stock law district. Laws 1897, ch. 11, p. 21. The discretion expressed in this amendment, by use of the word "may," refers to the petitioner.

If a freeholder or a leaseholder for a term of three years or more comply with this plain statute, to grant the prayer of his petition, by the board, is compulsory--only a...