State ex rel. Public Service Commission v. Marion Circuit Court

• Decision Date: 25 January 1952
• Docket Number: No. 28819,28819
• Citation: 103 N.E.2d 214,230 Ind. 277
• Parties: STATE of Indiana on relation of PUBLIC SERVICE COMMISSION of Indiana, relator, v. MARION CIRCUIT COURT and Lloyd D. Claycombe, sole Judge of said Court, respondents.
• Court: Indiana Supreme Court

Page 214

103 N.E.2d 214

230 Ind. 277

STATE of Indiana on relation of PUBLIC SERVICE COMMISSION of Indiana, relator, v. MARION CIRCUIT COURT and Lloyd D. Claycombe, sole Judge of said Court, respondents.

No. 28819.

Supreme Court of Indiana.

Jan. 25, 1952.

J. Emmett McManamon, Atty. Gen., Frank E. Coughlin, Jr., Walter F. Jones, and Clyde H. Jones, Deputy Attys. Gen., for relator.

Lloyd D. Claycombe, Judge, and T. D. Stevenson, Indianapolis, Patrick J. Smith, Indianapolis, of counsel, for respondents.

Thompson, O'Neal & Smith, Indianapolis, amicus curiae.

EMMERT, Judge.

This is a case of great importance not only to the rate payers and the utility, but also in our field of public administrative law. Since the majority opinion departs from the many well considered cases of this court, as well as the Supreme Court of the United States, involving constitutional provisions for the separation of judicial powers from legislative powers, and well recognized rules limiting jurisdiction of courts, the errors involved should not go unnoticed in the precedents of this court.

The temporary writ of prohibition should have been made permanent because the Marion Circuit Court had no jurisdiction to enter the judgment it did. The judgment is void (I) because it violated § 1 of Article 4 and § 1 of Article 3 of the Constitution of Indiana, ¹ and (II) the temporary injunction was void for want of any finding whatever to support it.

When a particular judgment is questioned to determine if it is void for want of jurisdiction, the exclusive test is not whether the court had jurisdiction of the parties and of the subject matter. 'There are in general three jurisdictional elements in every valid judgment, namely, jurisdiction of the subject matter, jurisdiction of the person, and the power or authority to render the particular judgment.' 1 Freeman, Judgments (5th Ed.), 444, 445, § 226. ²

'This well-established doctrine that a judgment beyond the court's power is invalid, to not limited in its application to any particular kind of judgment nor is it peculiar to the judgments of any particular court. Irrespective of the character or dignity of the tribunal pronouncing the decision, whether of inferor, limited or superior general jurisdiction, it must confine its determination within the authority it possesses under the law and the case.' 1 Freeman, Judgments (2th Ed.), 735, § 354. This authority was recently cited with approval in Underhill v. Franz, Ind.1951, 101 N.E.2d 264, 267, wherein we unanimously held that a judgment approving a viewer's and serveyor's report for repair of that part of a ditch which increased the length of the ditch to be cleaned by more than 10 per cent, was void for want of jurisdiction because the statute limited such amendment to 10 per cent of the original petition. The court did not have jurisdiction to enter the excessive part of the particular judgment it did enter. ³

Although a court may have jurisdiction of the subject matter, of the person and of the particular class of cases, such as would be the case where a plaintiff in the circuit court sued a defendant on a valid overdue promissory note and properly obtained jurisdiction of the person of the defendant, who would contend that the trial court, on a finding that the plaintiff should recover of and from the defendant the sum of $100 and costs, would then have jurisdiction to imprison the defendant to collect the liquidated debt, in violation of art. 1, § 22 of our Constitution? Obviously the court could not have jurisdiction to enter this particular judgment.

In prohibition matters this court has consistently followed the rule 'which is well supported by authority from other jurisdictions, that where a court of equity has no jurisdiction to issue injunctions and restraining orders in the particular class of cases, this court will intervene by writ of prohibition to prevent the exercise of jurisdiction in a case within that class. State ex rel. L'Abbe et al. v. District Court, 1899, 26 Colo. 386, 58 P. 604, 46 L.R.A. 850; State ex rel. Kenamore v. Wood et al., 1900, 155 Mo. 425, 56 S.W. 474, 48 L.R.A. 596, 50 C.J. 666.' State ex rel. Fry v. Superior Court of Lake County, 1933, 205 Ind. 355, 360, 361, 186 N.E. 310, 312. This principle that equity has no jurisdiction to issue an injunction to protect a permit to sell alcoholic beverages, since there is no property right in such a permit, has been consistently followed by this court. State ex rel. Zeller v. Montgomery Circuit Court, 1945, 223 Ind. 476, 62 N.E.2d 149; State ex rel. Indiana Alcoholic Beverages Comm. v. Circuit Court of Marion County, 1943, 221 Ind. 572, 49 N.E.2d 538.

In the absence of statutory authority, courts do not have any jurisdiction to interfere by injunction with organization affairs of political parties. 'The mere fact that the court had jurisdiction of actions at law as well as suits in equity is not cause for refusing a writ of prohibition to restrain it from acting outside and in excess of its equitable jurisdiction by issuing an injunction to control matters purely political.' State ex rel. Coffin v. Marion Superior Court, 1925, 196 Ind. 614, 625, 149 N.E. 174, 177. The holding of this case was followed in State ex rel. Blaize v. Hoover, 1936, 210 Ind. 215, 2 N.E.2d 391. Although equity has general power to appoint receivers, it does not have jurisdiction to appoint a receiver of the property of an individual to protect an unsecured creditor. State ex rel. v. Superior Court of Marion County, 1924, 195 Ind. 174, 144 N.E. 747. This principle was recently affirmed in State ex rel. Busick v. Ewing, Judge, Ind.1951, 102 N.E.2d 370. When the legislature by statute places the exclusive right in the bank commission to apply for the appointment of a receiver for a bank, the trial court, on the complaint of a creditor, did not acquire jurisdiction to appoint a receiver. State ex rel. Meyer-Kiser Bank v. Superior Court of Marion County, 1931, 202 Ind. 589, 177 N.E. 322.

Nor, in the absence of statute authorizing it, does the trial court in a drain proceedings have jurisdiction to order the state highway commission to build a bridge for the drain. State v. Roberts, 1948, 226 Ind. 106, 76 N.E.2d 832, 78 N.E.2d 440. Nor does the trial court have jurisdiction to issue a restraining order beyond the issues made by the complaint. State ex rel. Suprise v. Porter Circuit Court, 1948, 226 Ind. 375, 80 N.E.2d 107. Nor does the trial court have jurisdiction to try issues arising out of a contract when another court of concurrent jurisdiction had first acquired jurisdiction to litigate the rights under the same contract. State ex rel. Ferger v. Circuit Court, 1949, 227 Ind. 212, 84 N.E.2d 585; State ex rel. Allison v. Brennan, 1951, 229 Ind. 281, 97 N.E.2d 925. General jurisdiction to issue injunctions does not give a court jurisdiction to issue an injunction which involves rates when another court by statute has jurisdiction to review a pending matter concerning utility rates. State ex rel. Indianapolis Rys. v. Superior Court, 1947, 225 Ind. 301, 74 N.E.2d 912. See also State ex rel. Allison v. Marion Municipal Court, 1944, 222 Ind. 602, 56 N.E.2d 493; State ex rel. Feeney v. Superior Court of Marion County, 1934, 206 Ind. 78, 188 N.E. 486; State ex rel. Kunkle v. LaPorte Circuit Ct., 1936, 209 Ind. 682, 694, 200 N.E. 614; Board of Com'rs of White County v. Gwin, 1894, 136 Ind. 562, 36 N.E. 237, 22 L.R.A. 402; I High, Injunctions (4th Ed.), p. 59, § 43. ⁴ That part of a peremptory writ of mandamus which is beyond the power of the court to issue is in excess of its jurisdiction and void. Ex parte Rowland, 1882, 104 U.S. 604, 26 L.Ed. 861.

The distinction between judicial and legislative functions has been clearly stated by Mr. Justice Holmes in Prentis v. Altantic Coast Line Co., 1908, 211 U.S. 210, 226, 29 S.Ct. 67, 69, 53 L.Ed. 150, 158, 159, as follows: 'A judicial inquiry investigates, declares, and enforces liabilities as they stand on present or past facts and under laws supposed already to exist. That is its purpose and end. Legislation, on the other hand, looks to the future and changes existing conditions by making a new rule, to be applied thereafter to all or some part of those subject to its power. The establishment of a rate is the making of a rule for the future, and therefore is an act legislative, not judicial, in kind * * *.' In a review of a commission order fixing rates, Chief Justice Taft noted the limitation on the jurisdiction of courts in the following language: 'Or has it [the court] the power, in this equitable proceeding, to review the exercise of discretion by the commission and itself raise or lower valuations, rates, or restrict or expand orders as to service? Has it the power to make the order the commission should have made? If it has, then the court is to exercise legislative power, in that it will be laying down new rules, to change present conditions and to guide future action, and is not confined to definition and protection of existing rights.' Keller v. Potomac Electric Power Co., 1923, 261 U.S. 428, 440, 43 S.Ct. 445, 447, 67 L.Ed. 731, 735. See also Los Angeles Gas & Electric Corp. v. Railroad Comm., 1933, 289 U.S. 287, 304, 305, 53 S.Ct. 637, 77 L.Ed. 1180, 1192; St. Joseph Stock Yards Co. v. U. S., 1936, 298 U.S. 38, 51, 56 S.Ct. 720, 80 L.Ed. 1033, 1041.

In St. Louis & S. F. R. Co. v. Gill, 1895, 156 U.S. 649, 667, 15 S.Ct. 484, 490, 39 L.Ed. 567, 573, the Supreme Court quoted with approval the opinion in Reagan v. Farmers Loan & Trust Co., 1894, 154 U.S. 362, 14 S.Ct. 1047, 38 L.Ed. 1014, as follows: 'The opinion of this court on appeal was that while it was within the power of a court of equity in such case to decree that the rates so established by the commission were unreasonable and unjust, and to restrain their enforcement, it was not within its power to establish rates itself, or to restrain the commission from again...