Rhodes-Burford Furniture Co. v. Mattox

• Decision Date: 02 November 1893
• Citation: 135 Ind. 372,35 N.E. 11
• Parties: RHODES-BURFORD FURNITURE CO. v. MATTOX et al.
• Court: Indiana Supreme Court

135 Ind. 372

35 N.E. 11

RHODES-BURFORD FURNITURE CO.

v.MATTOX et al.

Supreme Court of Indiana.

Nov. 2, 1893.

On rehearing.

McCABE, J.

Appellant asks for a rehearing because, as is claimed, we failed to decide whether the legislature had power to limit the number of jurors in a civil case before a justice of the peace to 6, and failed to say in our opinion whether or not a trial had, over a party's objection and exception, with a jury of 12, instead of 6, as provided by statute, was void, and whether a verdict for damages in favor of a defendant in replevin was void. We expressly held that a trial before a justice of the peace in a civil case, with a jury of 12 instead of 6, was an irregularity, and therefore an error. That plainly implied that we were of opinion that the act referred to, providing for such a trial by a jury of 6, was a valid enactment.

It is not easy to understand what counsel means in the last two points,-whether a trial, had over a party's objection and exception, with a jury of 12 instead of 6, is void or not. This being an attempt to enjoin the judgment for that cause, the question presented was whether the judgment was void or not, and not whether any of the proceedings leading up to the judgment were irregular or void. So long as the irregularity did not deprive the court of jurisdiction over the subject or the parties, its judgment, though the proceedings leading up to it, and the judgment itself, were erroneous, nevertheless, if jurisdiction remained, would not be void. It does the appellant no good, in this case, to show that it objected to a trial by 12 jurors, instead of 6, and took its exceptions. An exception before a justice of the peace is of no avail, because on appeal the whole case is tried de novo, and final judgment rendered in the appellate court without any regard to any error committed upon the trial before the justice. But if prejudicial errors in the proceedings leading up to the judgment, or in the judgment itself, before a justice of the peace, have been committed, which do not affect the jurisdiction over the subject or parties, the only remedy is by appeal to a higher court, where the case can be tried de novo, and where, on such trial, such errors can be avoided. If a party against whom such errors may have been committed sees fit not to so appeal from the justice's judgment, he must be deemed to have waived all such errors; and if, instead of so appealing, he seeks to enjoin the...