Simmons v. Simmons

• Decision Date: 16 May 1917
• Docket Number: 23,125
• Parties: Simmons v. Simmons et al
• Court: Indiana Supreme Court

116 N.E. 49

186 Ind. 575

Simmons v. Simmons et al

No. 23,125

Supreme Court of Indiana

May 16, 1917

Rehearing Denied October 31, 1971.

From Hendricks Circuit Court; George W. Brill, Judge.

Action by Dana Simmons against William Simmons and others. From a judgment for defendants, the plaintiff appeals.

Affirmed.

Wilson S. Doan, James C. Mathews and Thad S. Adams, for appellant.

Thomas J. Cofer, Zimri E. Dougan, George C. Harvey, George R Harvey, Alexander G. Cavins and Horace L. Hanna, for appellees.

OPINION

Lairy, C. J.

Appellant brought this action to recover damages for false imprisonment. The facts upon which she based her cause of action were stated in a complaint to which a demurrer for want of sufficient facts was addressed by appellees. This demurrer was sustained and appellant, refusing to amend, suffered judgment to go against her. The action of the trial court in sustaining the demurrer to the complaint is the only error presented on appeal.

The complaint shows that William Simmons is a brother of appellant, and that Rosa Daum is her sister, and that these appellees caused proceedings to be brought before appellee James Barlow, who was at the time a justice of the peace, whereby appellant was adjudged to be a proper subject for treatment in a hospital for the insane, and, as a result of which she was committed to and confined in the Central Indiana Hospital for the Insane for a period of twenty days. It further appears that such proceedings were instituted under the provisions of § 3692 et seq. Burns 1914, § 2843 R. S. 1881, which makes no provision for notice to the person against whom such proceedings are brought, and it is alleged that no summons directing her to appear at such inquisition was ever served on her and that she was not given an opportunity to defend herself in said proceeding.

It is alleged that the law under which such inquisition was held and under which she was committed to and confined in the hospital for the insane is unconstitutional and void for the reason that it is in conflict with Art. 5 of the amendments to the Constitution of the United States, which provides among other things that no person shall be deprived of life, liberty or property without due process of law.

The other allegations of the complaint are not set out or considered inasmuch as it seems to be conceded by all parties to the appeal that the complaint is sufficient if the act under which the inquisition of insanity was held is unconstitutional, and that the complaint is insufficient if the act in question is constitutional.

It is the duty of a court of appeal to consider questions of law decided by the trial courts in cases brought up on appeal, and to determine whether the questions so presented were decided correctly or erroneously. In so doing it is proper that the court on appeal should consider such questions only as were presented to and decided by the trial court. In this case the trial court was required to decide whether or not the statute under which the insanity inquest was held was invalid as being in...