Odom v. McDilda

• Decision Date: 21 May 1923
• Docket Number: 3508.
• Parties: ODOM ET AL., COUNTY COM'RS, v. MCDILDA ET AL., COUNTY COM'RS.
• Court: Georgia Supreme Court

117 S.E. 649

155 Ga. 688

ODOM ET AL., COUNTY COM'RS, v. MCDILDA ET AL., COUNTY COM'RS.

No. 3508.

Supreme Court of Georgia

May 21, 1923

Syllabus by the Court.

Where county commissioners were cited for contempt for disobedience of a judgment making a mandamus absolute and requiring them to repair a public road; and where they filed both a demurrer and an answer to the contempt proceedings in the latter of which they denied willful and contumacious disobedience of the mandamus judgment, on account of which they prayed to be discharged and acquitted of said contempt, and alleged certain facts on account of which they prayed for a modification of the mandamus judgment; and where the judge after hearing evidence and without passing any order expressly overruling the demurrer, rendered judgment declining to modify the judgment for disobedience of which the commissioners were cited for contempt, sustaining the petition in the contempt proceeding, and adjudging the commissioners in contempt--such judgment was a final one, to which the commissioners could sue out a writ of error to this court to review the same, although there was a provision in this judgment withholding infliction of any penalty for contempt, and permitting the respondents to purge themselves of the contempt by immediately beginning work on said public road; and a motion to dismiss the bill of exceptions, on the ground that the judgment excepted to was not final, and on the further ground that a reversal would be of no benefit to plaintiffs in error, is refused, it appearing that the commissioners did not purge themselves of contempt under the provision of said judgment. If the judgment in the contempt proceeding had been rendered as claimed by the respondents it would have been a final disposition of the case. Civil Code 1910, § 6138; Head v. Marietta Guano Co., 124 Ga. 983, 53 S.E. 676; Reed v. Warnock, 146 Ga. 483 91 S.E. 545; Littlefield v. Town of Adel, 151 Ga 684, 108 S.E. 56.

A decision by a court of competent jurisdiction on an application for a mandamus, awarding the writ, cannot thereafter be questioned collaterally by any of the parties and the same is conclusive until reversed or set aside; and there was no error in adjudging the commissioners to be in contempt for refusing to obey it. Ficklen v. City of Washington, 141 Ga. 441, 81 S.E. 123.

Where in a proceeding under the Civil Code 1910, § 5441, a mandamus absolute is...