Peff v. Doolittle

• Decision Date: 14 December 1944
• Docket Number: No. 46518.,46518.
• Citation: 235 Iowa 443,15 N.W.2d 913
• Parties: PEFF v. DOOLITTLE et al.
• Court: Iowa Supreme Court

235 Iowa 443

15 N.W.2d 913

PEFF

v.DOOLITTLE et al.

No. 46518.

Supreme Court of Iowa.

Oct. 17, 1944.

Rehearing Denied Dec. 14, 1944.

Appeal from District Court, Ringgold County; Homer A. Fuller, Judge.

Proceeding upon a writ of habeas corpus issued by the district court of Iowa in and for Ringgold county, on behalf of Geraldine Peff, by L. W. Laughlin, guardian and next friend, as plaintiff, directed to Dr. Russell C. Doolittle, Sydney L. MacMullen, and the Retreat Company, a corporation, defendants. From a ruling in favor of plaintiff, defendants appeal.

Reversed.

Francis J. Kuble, Co. Atty. of Polk County, and Stipp, Perry, Bannister, Carpenter & Ahlers, all of Des Moines, for appellants.

Grant L. Hayes, Co. Atty. of Ringgold County, Lewis & Lewis, Emmet R. Warin, and Frank F. Wilson, all of Mount Ayr, for appellee.

HALE, Justice.

The plaintiff, Geraldine Peff, was born in Des Moines December 20, 1902. She is the daughter of L. W. Laughlin, whose home is in Mount Ayr. She was married to Peter Peff in New York City, where she had been employed as a teacher, on June 30, 1931, and afterward lived in New Jersey. To this marriage twin daughters were born about 1935. Peter Peff is of Bulgarian birth, and after his marriage, through a manufacturing business, he acquired considerable wealth. Mrs. Peff in 1937 developed mental trouble, and was first taken care of in a private hospital for the mentally afflicted in Overbrook, New Jersey. Thereafter she was in various hospitals for the treatment of the mentally ill: at Paterson, New Jersey; The Retreat, at Des Moines; Davenport, Iowa; Macon, Missouri; and again at The Retreat, where she was an inmate at the institution of this action. Defendant Dr. Russell C. Doolittle is the medical director of The Retreat, a hospital for the care and treatment of nervous and mental cases, located in Des Moines. Defendant Sydney L. MacMullen is the business manager of The Retreat.

Geraldine Peff was a private patient in this institution, but was committed there as insane by the commissioners of insanity of Polk county, on May 25, 1943.

The questions in this appeal are those pertaining to the habeas corpus proceedings in Ringgold county. The record submitted to us contains many immaterial matters and questions not involved in the appeal. The claim of appellants is that the Ringgold District Court, in the proceedings and decision for the appellee, erred in four respects (1) attempting to assume jurisdiction to the exclusion of the prior jurisdiction of the Polk County District Court, (2) in basing its decision upon the claimed personal knowledge of the trial judge, (3) in finding Geraldine Peff to be sane, and (4) in ruling that the burden of proof was upon appellants.

The first and most important of the claimed errors is that of jurisdiction. Appellants argue that the Ringgold County District Court was without jurisdiction when it attempted by habeas corpus to interfere with a case already pending on appeal in a proceeding involving the same issues before another court of concurrent jurisdiction.

In considering the question of jurisdiction involved herein it is necessary to present the proceedings in the courts of Polk and Ringgold counties.

On May 22, 1943, while she was an inmate of The Retreat, there was instituted in Polk county, in the name of Geraldine Peff as plaintiff, by L. W. Laughlin and John E. Holmes, as her attorneys, a petition in habeas corpus against Russell C. Doolittle and Sydney L. MacMullen, which action was dismissed without prejudice by dismissal signed by Geraldine Peff, by L. W. Laughlin and John E. Holmes, attorneys for plaintiff, on May 26, 1943. On May 25, 1943, on information filed by Peter Peff, the commission of insanity of Polk county found Geraldine Peff to be insane and committed her to The Retreat. From such order Geraldine Peff appealed to the district court on June 3, 1943. On June 29, 1943, she filed petition in the district court for removal from The Retreat pending appeal, which application, on July 2, 1943, was denied. On the same day the commission of insanity ordered that pending appeal she be confined in The Retreat. From the above order of the Polk County District Court denying her release Geraldine Peff filed in the office of the clerk of the district court of Polk county a notice of appeal to the supreme court.

While these proceedings were being had in Polk county, and pending appeal from the order of the commission of insanity to the district court of Polk county, there were proceedings in guardianship instituted in Ringgold county by L. W. Laughlin, attorney for and father of Geraldine Peff. On May 31, 1943, said Laughlin filed petition praying for his appointment as guardian of the person and property of Geraldine Peff, and on June 5, 1943, the Honorable Homer A. Fuller, as judge of the district court of Ringgold county, appointed L. W. Laughlin as temporary guardian. L. W. Laughlin, on June 8, 1943, filed application for authority to bring legal action against The Retreat for the unlawful detention of Geraldine Peff, for the alleged unlawful finding of the Polk county commission, and for habeas corpus. Order granting authority was entered June 8, 1943.

There was further, on July 19, 1943, a petition for injunction against Peter Peff, filed in Ringgold county by the guardian, and on the same day temporary injunction issued. We are not concerned with such injunction proceedings so far as this appeal is concerned.

This was the situation and the record in Polk county and in Ringgold county when these proceedings in habeas corpus were commenced in Ringgold county. On August 30, 1943, the petition for writ of habeas corpus was filed. As this petition fills twenty-five pages of the record, exclusive of exhibits, it is obviously impracticable and unnecessary to set out all the various allegations therein contained. The petition was that day presented to Judge Fuller, one of the judges of the third judicial district, and the application was allowed and the writ issued returnable September 1, 1943. Defendants appeared on that date and orally entered special appearance, which was overruled, and afterward incorporated the objection to jurisdiction in their answer, and trial was begun on September 7th.

As stated, the order of the Polk county commissioners of insanity was made on May 25th, and the appeal to the Polk County District Court was on June 3, 1943, within the ten days' time authorized by section 3560, Code of 1939, so that the matter of appellee's sanity was pending in that court when the writ of habeas corpus issued out of the Ringgold county court.

The general rule as to actions under such circumstances is cited by appellants, and is as follows: ‘Pursuant to a general rule of wide application, on which there is no conflict of authorities, it has been held that a court is without jurisdiction where it attempts by habeas corpus to interfere with the exercise by another court of jurisdiction theretofore acquired whether such jurisdiction is acquired in another habeas corpus proceeding or on appeal, or otherwise, unless the prior jurisdiction has been terminated. More limited judicial statements are that a court should not, and will not, so interfere by habeas corpus, and that, while the pendency of a proceeding, affecting the matter in controversy, in another court which has taken prior jurisdiction does not deprive the court under all circumstances of the power to issue a writ of habeas corpus, the court should, as a matter of comity, refrain, by postponing a hearing on the writ or at least by withholding a decision, from proceeding on the writ until the conclusion of the action, suit, or proceeding which was first begun.’ 39 C.J.S. Habeas Corpus, p. 596, § 53.

The general rule is also stated in similar terms: ‘It is a settled rule that wherever a court has acquired jurisdiction of a case, no other court may, upon habeas corpus, interfere with its action as to matters concerning which it has acquired jurisdiction. Any other rule would produce a conflict of jurisdiction over the right to the custody of the person of the prisoner and lead to inextricable confusion, resulting in a defeat of the due administration of the law. For example, if an appellate court has acquired jurisdiction by virtue of an appeal from a judgment of conviction, no other court may discharge the defendant during the pendency of the appeal; that is to say, a court has no power to grant a writ of habeas corpus pending an appeal to another court from a conviction in a criminal prosecution. Nor may the fact that judges of inferior courts have concurrent jurisdiction with the highest appellate court in habeas corpus proceedings authorize a judge of an inferior court to entertain habeas corpus proceedings for the release of a prisoner whose conviction has been affirmed by the appellate court, or to overrule or review the decision of the latter court on a question of either law or fact.’ 25 Am.Jur. 223, section 108.

It is obvious that any other rule would tend to confusion and make many judgments uncertain and ineffective. The rule announced in the two authorities quoted is of universal application, and, as stated in the quotation from Corpus Juris Secundum, there is no conflict of authorities, and appellee in argument cites none. As valuable and important a right as is the writ of habeas corpus, and as essential as it is in guarding and preserving human liberty, yet, like any other order or judgment of a court, it can be granted only by a court having jurisdiction. Nor can the exercise of this power to grant the writ be used to unsettle valid legal proceedings or to interfere with the exercise of the jurisdiction of other courts.

The texts quoted cite many authorities, as do appellants. We need not refer to all authorities cited, but only to some, more as illustrative of the effects of encroachment by one court upon the jurisdiction of another than as...