Padgett v. State

• Decision Date: 21 February 1884
• Docket Number: 11,383
• Citation: 93 Ind. 396
• Parties: Padgett v. The State
• Court: Indiana Supreme Court

93 Ind. 396

Padgett v. The State

No. 11,383

Supreme Court of Indiana

February 21, 1884

From the Morgan Circuit Court.

Judgment reversed.

J. V Mitchell, J. F. Cox, J. E. McDonald, J. M. Butler and A. L Mason, for appellant.

F. T Hord, Attorney General, F. P. A. Phelps, Prosecuting Attorney, W. R. Harrison, G. W. Grubbs, W. E. McCord, J. H. Jordan, -- Matthews, G. A. Adams, J. S. Newby, L. Ferguson and -- Renner, for appellee.

OPINION

Elliott, J.

The appellant applied for license to retail liquor; the board of commissioners denied his application; he prosecuted an appeal to the circuit court and succeeded in obtaining a judgment that he was a fit person to receive a license, but, notwithstanding this judgment and the payment of the license fee to the treasurer, the auditor refused to approve the bond offered by appellant, or to issue a license to him. The remonstrators appealed from the judgment of the circuit court, and within due time filed the proper appeal bond. After the payment of the license fee, and after the auditor, by command of the court, had approved appellant's bond, but also after the appeal had been taken by the remonstrators, the appellant sold the intoxicating liquor as charged in the indictment upon which this prosecution is founded.

It is now well settled that from all decisions of a judicial nature made by the board of commissioners an appeal will lie to the circuit court unless expressly or impliedly forbidden by statute. Town of Cicero v. Williamson, 91 Ind. 541; Board, etc., v. Logansport, etc., G. R. Co., 88 Ind. 199; Miller v. Embree, 88 Ind. 133; Bryan v. Moore, 81 Ind. 9; Board, etc., v. Pressley, 81 Ind. 361; Ricketts v. Spraker, 77 Ind. 371; Grusenmeyer v. City of Logansport, 76 Ind. 549; Baltimore, etc., R. R. Co. v. Board, etc., 73 Ind. 213; Houk v. Barthold, 73 Ind. 21; Hanna v. Board, etc., 29 Ind. 170. A very great number of decisions recognize the principle that from all judgments of the circuit court there is an appeal to the Supreme Court unless an appeal is prohibited by some statutory provision. The cases are by far too numerous for citation. We think there can be no doubt that under our present statutes and decisions the rule is that there may be an appeal from a judgment of the circuit court granting or refusing a license.

The difficult question in this case is as to the effect of the appeal taken by the remonstrators from the judgment of the circuit court. A judgment is not changed or impaired by an appeal; it remains in full force. Nill v Comparet, 16 Ind. 107; Mull v. McKnight, 67 Ind. 525; Randles v. Randles, 67 Ind. 434; Walls v. Palmer, 64 Ind. 493. The statute, however, provides that "When an appeal is taken during the term at which judgment is rendered, it shall operate as a stay of all further proceedings," and if the act of taking out a license is a proceeding on the judgment, then the appeal stayed the appellant from obtaining the license. We do not regard the issuing of the license as a proceeding on the judgment within the meaning of the statute. One reason for this conclusion is that the judgment is self-executing. The entry of the judgment entitles the applicant to his license without any other proceedings on the judgment. The decision of the circuit court is decisive of the applicant's right to a license, and the ministerial officers are bound to obey it without requiring that process be issued for its enforcement. There is, indeed, no provision for enforcing obedience to the judgment by process, and none is needed, for the judgment enforces itself. The only question to be settled is the right of the applicant to the license, and when the court settles this question the rights of the parties are completely determined, and relief fully awarded. There is no necessity for any process; there is no property to be seized by it; no wrong-doer to be ejected from an office, or from property, or anything of that kind; all that can possibly be accomplished is effected by the judgment itself. So far as the court and its process and powers are concerned, its whole duty is done and its whole power exercised when judgment is pronounced declaring the applicant to be a person entitled by law to a license. In the action in which the judgment was pronounced nothing more can be done. It may be that a ministerial officer, by refusing a license, may compel resort to legal measures, but, conceding this to be true, there can, strictly speaking, be no process on the judgment; the appropriate proceeding is an independent one for a writ of mandate against the officer who wrongfully refuses to perform his duty. The judgment of the circuit court is complete in itself, and awards all that the court can by its decree or its process legitimately award. It is not easy to conceive a judgment more clearly self-executing. Many judgments are, it is well known, executed by their own terms. Thus, any ordinary judgment for the plaintiff in replevin, where he has possession of the property executes itself; so does a judgment in favor of one in possession of an office, and so, also, does a judgment in partition and a judgment disbarring an attorney. Randles v. Randles, supra; Ex Parte Walls, 64 Ind. 461. In theory, all judgments are self-executing. Freeman Ex., section 1; Freeman Judg., section 2. It is, however,...