Platte Land Co. v. Hubbard

• Decision Date: 02 June 1902
• Citation: 30 Colo. 40,69 P. 514
• Parties: PLATTE LAND CO., Limited, v. HUBBARD.
• Court: Colorado Supreme Court

69 P. 514

30 Colo. 40

PLATTE LAND CO., Limited, v. HUBBARD.

Supreme Court of Colorado

June 2, 1902

Error to district court, Arapaboe county.

Action by John M. Hubbard against the Platte Land Company, Limited. From a judgment for plaintiff, defendant brings error. Motion to dismiss writ. Writ dismissed.

The defendant in error, Hubbard, as plaintiff in an action pending in the district court of Arapahoe county, recovered a judgment against plaintiff in error, the Platte Land Company Limited, defendant in that action, in the sum of about $1,600. The company prosecuted an appeal to the court of appeals, which resulted in an affirmance of the judgment. By the express terms of the act creating that court, its appellate jurisdiction in a case like this was made final and conclusive. A writ of error was then sued out by the company in this court, directed to the clerk of the district court commanding him to certify up a full record of the proceedings in the case. The clerk sent up a copy of the pleadings and the judgment only; the bill of exceptions, containing the evidence and the rulings of the court during the trial, being included in, and forming a part of, the complete transcript of the record remaining in the office of the clerk of the court of appeals, where it had been lodged by the plaintiff in error here (appellant there) in the prosecution of its appeal. Plaintiff in error thereupon filed a motion in this court for an order upon the clerk of the court of appeals to send here the bill of exceptions for the purpose of making the same a part of the record in this cause, to be reviewed upon the writ of error hereinbefore sued out. The defendant in error then entered his motion to quash the writ of error for the reason that the record already in this court disclosed that the judgment here sought to be reviewed is for less than $2,500, that there is present in the case no element that gives to this court appellate jurisdiction under the statute relating thereto, and that the judgment thus sought to be reviewed has been affirmed by the court of appeals in an appeal by the very party who asks for a second review, and such determination is final.

Hugh Butler, for plaintiff in error.

Wells &amp Taylor and R. T. McNeal, for defendant in error.

CAMPBELL C.J. (after stating the facts).

The learned counsel for plaintiff in error attacks the constitutionality of the act of our general assembly by which the court of appeals was created. He asserts its invalidity as a whole, and, if that is ruled against him, he contends that, if the statute is not void in its entirety, it is so in so far as it purports to make the appellate jurisdiction of the court of appeals final and conclusive in any case. In People v. Richmond, 16 Colo. 274, 26 P. 929, in an original proceeding in the nature of quo warranto, in which the court of appeals itself was the respondent, this court, in an able opinion by Chief Justice Helm, held, as generally understood by the profession, that the act there and now here again attacked was constitutional; although, in a previous opinion in response to a legislative question, it held similar legislation, as it is now said, obnoxious, to the organic act. In re Constitutionality of a Court of Appeals, 15 Colo 578, 26 P. 274. In an elaborate argument exhibiting great research counsel for plaintiff in error again...