Oil v. Rummel

• Decision Date: 18 April 1916
• Citation: 78 W.Va. 196
• Court: West Virginia Supreme Court
• Parties: Wayland Oil & Gas Co. et al. v. Rummel, Judge, et al.

78 W.Va. 196

Wayland Oil & Gas Co. et al.

v.Rummel, Judge, et al.

Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia.

Submitted April 11, 1916.

Decided April 18, 1916.

1. Injunction Venue Statutory Provision.

By sec. 4, ch. 133, Code, jurisdiction to award injunctive process is vested exclusively in the circuit court of the county wherein the act or proceeding sought to be enjoined is to be done, or is doing, or is apprehended, notwithstanding some of the defendants may reside in another county; except as provided in sections 6 and 9 of the same chapter, and where a co-ordinate court has jurisdiction on grounds other than the award of such injunction. (p. 198).

2. Prohibition Subjects of Belief Judicial Acts.

The award of an injunction by the common pleas court of Kanawha County, wherein some of the defendants reside, to enjoin acts and proceedings being committed and prosecuted or threatened in Lincoln County and affecting real estate therein, is coram non judice and void; and prohibition lies to restrain further maintenance or cognizance of the suit. (p. 199).

3. Same Nature of Bemedy Existence of Other Remedy.

In such case, no plea in abatement of the suit, or motion to dissolve the injunction, is essential before asking for the writ of prohibition. (p. 202).

4. Injunction Subject Matter of Action Cancellation of Title.

Nor will amendment of the injunction bill, by the insertion of a prayer for cancellation of a title claimed by defendants and adverse to that asserted by plaintiffs, confer jurisdiction on the common pleas court to award or perpetuate the injunction or to hear and determine the cause on its merits. Jurisdiction of a suit to remove cloud from title is determined by the situs of the land. (p. 201).

(Miller, Judge, absent.)

Petition by the Wayland Oil & Gas Company and others for writ of prohibition to H. D. Rummel, judge of common pleas court of Kanawha County, and others.

Writ awarded.

Stiles & Goettman and Koontz & Hurlbutt, for petitioners.

McClintic, Mathews & Campbell and Price, Smith, Spilmau & Clay, for respondents.

Lynch, Judge:

The common pleas court of Kanawha County, upon a bill filed therein by I). G. Williamson and others against the Wayland Oil & Gas Company and others, enjoined defendants from doing or attempting certain designated acts threatened or contemplated by them on real estate situated in Lincoln County, in and on which plaintiffs assert the right to exercise, unmolested, certain oil and gas privileges under a grant or lease therefor. The defendants enjoined applied to this court for and obtained a rule in prohibition to prevent further consideration and maintenance of the suit, and the entry therein by the common pleas court of any order other than one dissolving the injunction and dismissing the cause for want of jurisdiction. Upon appearance thereto, the respondents filed their joint answer and return to the rule, to which the petitioners demurred and moved to quash the same.

The land involved is a tract of 35 acres in Lincoln County, part of 12, 900 acres which plaintiffs Williamson and others allege constitute a parcel of the premises held by them under a valid title for the purpose of operating thereon for the discovery and production of oil and gas. They charge that defendants have obstructed the free exercise and enjoyment of the privileges granted to them in virtue of the oil and gas lease on the larger acreage, under the terms of which plaintiffs avered they theretofore had entered except as to the 35 acres and successfully operated for and without molestation from defendant or others produced valuable quantities of these mineral productions; and that when they attempted to enter or had entered and hauled material on the 35 acres for the erection thereon of the necessary rig or derrick preparatory to active drilling operations, defendants caused or threatened the arrest and prosecution of the agents and employees of plaintiffs and otherwise unlawfully to impede and obstruct them in the use and enjoyment of such rights and privileges. They prayed the award of an injunction to restrain and inhibit defendants from doing and causing to be done each and all of the alleged acts of violence and from arresting or causing the arrest of plaintiffs' agents and employees while in the performance of the labor assigned to them, and for general relief.

So that obviously the dominant, if not the sole, object of the bill, as presented to the judge of the common pleas court, to whom it was addressed, was and is the procurement of an injunction to prevent acts about to be performed in Lincoln and hence not in Kanawha County, as an unlawful obstruction to the exercise of an alleged lawful right. If this be the proper conception of the object and scope of the bill, and that it is can scarcely be doubted, manifestly the common pleas court did not have jurisdiction either to award the injunction or to hear and determine the cause upon its merits; nor could the circuit court of Kanawha County properly have awarded that process. For in such cases jurisdiction vests by statute in the circuit court of the county in which the act or proceeding sought to be enjoined is to be done, or is doing or is apprehended. Sec. 4, ch. 133, Code; Railway Co. v. Telegraph Co., 88 Va. 932, 936. Under this section, the circuit court of Lincoln County had exclusive authority to impose legal restraint by injunctive process, as the acts the doing of which constitute the wrong sought to be inhibited were threatened or apprehended within that county. No other court could do so, except where, as provided by section 6, any judge of a circuit court may a ward an injunction, whether the proceeding or person enjoined be or reside in or out of his circuit; in which case the writ awarded should have been direct- ed to the clerk of the Lincoln connty court, and thereupon the same proceedings had as if the order had been made by that court or the judge thereof in vacation. Sec. 9, ch. 133, Code. These provisions re-enforce, rather than weaken, the construction placed upon the exclusiveness of the jurisdiction of the circuit court of Lincoln county and the utter lack of it in any other court except as therein provided.

Respondents rely on Muller v. Bayly, 21 Gratt. 521, as authority to show jurisdiction in the common pleas court to award the injunction and to determine the cause upon its merits; also to confer the power on that court to certify the proceedings to the circuit court of Lincoln county. When properly discriminated, the facts of the two cases are dissimilar. In the Grattan case, it was held that, as plaintiffs had selected the tribunal, they could not, and that defendants could but did not, question the want of jurisdiction the reverse of the situation before us. Besides, the bill in the former averred other matters and thereon predicated relief other than the award of an injunction. And of course where any circuit court has taken jurisdiction of a canse properly cognizable by it, and has authority to hear and determine the proceeding upon its merits, such court may restrain such acts in another county wherein otherwise it could not do so. As to the first point raised by respondents, this case is controlled, we think, rather by Randolph v. Tucker, 10 Leigh 655, and Beckley v. Palmer, 11 Gratt. 625; and as to the second point by the Mullcr case. Although the Randolph and Tucker cases were decided upon appeal on the merits, and not by prohibition, virtually they determined the proper construction of section 4, chapter 133 of our Code, and the court dismissed them because coram non judice.

Again, respondents contend the award of the injunctive process was voidable only, and not void. But an order entered by a court in a proceeding of which it did not have jurisdiction of the subject matter, and hence none to enter the injunction order, is void, not merely erroneous. It is a usurpation or abuse of power, an act in excess of its legitimate functions, and prohibition lies. The writ is available as of right to restrain an inferior court from taking cognizance of any matter plainly not within its jurisdiction, or from exceeding the jurisdiction conferred. Buskirk v. Ward, 7 W. Va. 91; Coal Co. v. Ritz, 60 W. Va. 395. But, granting that, in assuming to exercise a power not vested in it, the common pleas court merely erred, that concessum would not prevent resort to the prohibitive writ. Weil v. Black, 86 S. E. 666. Respondents rely on Haldeman v. Davis, 28 W. Va. 324, and County Court v, Boreman, 34 W. Va. 364, for the proposition that prohibition does not lie to restrain that court, because the act creating it conferred a general jurisdiction. The two cases cited do state the rule to be that if the...