New Milford Water Co. v. Watson
| Decision Date | 04 October 1902 |
| Citation | 53 A. 57,75 Conn. 237 |
| Court | Connecticut Supreme Court |
| Parties | NEW MILFORD WATER CO. v. WATSON et al. |
For majority, opinion, see 52 Atl. 947.
CASE, J. (dissenting). The validity of any judgment depends primarily upon the jurisdiction of the court rendering it. To recognize the one in question as a valid judgment is to assume that the superior court had jurisdiction of the proceeding before it. I cannot concur, therefore, in the opinion of a majority of the court that there is no occasion to determine whether the superior court had jurisdiction to render any judgment at all, nor do I agree with their conclusion, which, by affirming the judgment appealed from, necessarily determines that that court had jurisdiction to render it. It seems to me that the superior court was wholly without jurisdiction of the case presented upon the record. That the parties assumed otherwise, and that the committee reported its doings in detail to the court, instead of returning its award to the clerk, as the plaintiff's charter directs, cannot alter the situation. Nor is their position in any respect changed because the committee so framed the report embodying its award as to present questions which should have been passed upon in advance by the judge who issued the commission. Such of these as are essential were in fact so raised before and determined by him. The correctness of his conclusions upon these material matters should have been challenged, if at all, by an appeal to this court from his action. Railroad Co. v. Long, 69 Conn. 424, 37 Atl. 1070. By the provisions of the plaintiff's amended charter, a commission is to issue only after the authority applied to has passed upon the merits of the application, and found "that it is expedient and necessary to take the property, easements, rights, and estates described" therein. Under the orderly procedure which the charter presupposes, the parties have had their day in court, with a full right of appeal, when the matters properly noticeable, and determined by that authority, have resulted either in a denial of the application, or in the appointment of a committee, with full and precise directions as to its single duty. In this case the application was unsuccessfully attacked before the judge, and a committee was appointed upon the finding prescribed by the charter. The judicial part of the proceeding ended there. The committee's only function was to follow the explicit mandate of its commission, make its award, and return its figures to the...
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