Raleigh County Court v. Cottle
| Decision Date | 22 October 1918 |
| Citation | 97 S.E. 292,82 W.Va. 743 |
| Parties | RALEIGH COUNTY COURT v. COTTLE ET AL. |
| Court | West Virginia Supreme Court |
Submitted October 8, 1918.
Syllabus by the Court.
Objections in the form of exceptions, to the sufficiency of answers to interrogatories or of certain parts of an answer to a bill partake to some extent of the nature of a demurrer.
Rulings by the lower court upon exceptions to answers to interrogatories appended to a bill in chancery do not raise a question as to the sufficiency of pleadings such as section 1, c. 135, of the Code (Code Supp. 1918, § 4981), authorizes to be certified to this court.
Though section 1, c. 135, of the Code (Code Supp. 1918, § 4981) permits rulings upon doubtful questions arising upon the sufficiency of pleadings to be certified to this court for review, the statute contemplates an unequivocal original ruling of the lower court as preliminary thereto.
Where the lower court, after ruling upon the sufficiency of certain claims for credits set up in the defendant's answer as a defense to plaintiff's bill, reserves for future determination in the final decree to be entered in the cause the right of defendant to the credits claimed, such ruling is not within the meaning of section 1, c. 135, Code (Code Supp 1918, § 4981), and this court is without jurisdiction to pass upon it.
Certified Questions from Circuit Court, Raleigh County.
Bill for accounting by County Court of Raleigh County against C. V. Cottle and others. Exceptions to answers to special interrogatories propounded to defendant and to certain claims for credit overruled, and action certified to Supreme Court of Appeals. Cause dismissed for want of jurisdiction.
See, also, 81 W.Va. 469, 94 S.E. 948.
J. W. Maxwell, of Beckley, for plaintiff.
C. M. Ward, of Beckley, for defendants.
Having finally overruled exceptions to the answers of C. V. Cottle, sheriff of Raleigh county for the four-year term beginning January 1, 1909, to special interrogatories propounded to him by the county court of that county in its bill to require an accounting of the public funds derived from levies and other sources and collected by him, with the object of apportioning to the several bonds executed by him from time to time during such term with different sureties any balance found to be due and chargeable to him and each group of sureties, and having tentatively overruled exceptions to certain claims for credit set up by him in the main body of the answer, the circuit court ex mero motu certified to this court for its judgment the correctness of the action upon the exceptions.
The facts averred in the bill as the basis for the ultimate relief sought by the plaintiff appear fully in the opinion rendered upon a former appeal and reported in 81 W.Va. 469, 94 S.E. 948, and hence need not be restated. The information desired by the interrogatories to be embodied in the answers, which were held not to be amenable to the objections urged against them, was a disclosure (1) as to whether with the public funds collected by him as such sheriff Cottle bought and paid for the property described in a deed of trust executed by him to indemnify certain of the sureties on his official bond; (2) what part of such property has been sold pursuant to the terms of that deed; (3) whether any piece or part of such property was bought and paid for by him in whole or in part with funds that came into his hands as such officer during any one of the periods covered by the first three bonds, and, if so, in what period he acquired such funds and the amount thereof; (4) whether he kept the daily record of receipts and disbursements as required by the statute regarding accounts of public officials, and, if so where such record now is; (5) what actual assets or money was in his hands as treasurer of the county when he executed each of the three official bonds?
The items set forth in the body of the answer, the legal validity of which he asserted and asked to be allowed as credits in determining the balance actually due and subject to the payment of the orders drawn by the county court upon the funds of the county in his hands as such treasurer, are: (1) Fifteen per cent. of the earnings incident to the administration of the office of county treasurer; (2) certain fines and costs against persons convicted of misdemeanors and sentenced to work upon the public roads of the county, which costs, the answer asserts, were paid by the persons so convicted and sentenced and charged to him in his settlements with the county court; (3) certain other items...
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