State v. City of Columbia
| Full Citation | State v. City of Columbia, 17 S.C. 80 (S.C. 1882) |
| Decision Date | 11 April 1882 |
| Citation | 17 S.C. 80 |
| Parties | STATE, EX RELATIONE RICHLAND COUNTY, v. COLUMBIA. |
| Court | South Carolina Supreme Court |
1. The right and duty of performing acts involving judgment and discretion do not constitute the officer or body so acting a court, which is a tribunal empowered to hear and determine issues between parties upon pleadings and evidence, according to settled principles of law. Hence a municipal corporation invested with power to grant licenses for the sale of liquors is not thereby made a court.
2. The city council of Columbia, under its charter, is an inferior court for certain limited purposes, but does not act as a court in passing upon applications for licenses to sell liquors.
3. The jurisdiction of the Supreme Court embraces four classes of powers: 1, appellate jurisdiction in cases of chancery; 2 the correction of errors of law under such regulations as the general assembly may prescribe; 3, the power to issue certain specified writs; 4, the power to issue such other and remedial writs as may be necessary to give it a general supervisory control over all other courts in this State. Const. , Art. IV., § 4.
4. The writ of prohibition can be issued by the Supreme Court by virtue only of the power conferred in the fourth class, and can therefore be used only when necessary to enable this court to exercise a supervisory control over other courts. It can issue to an inferior court only for the purpose of keeping it within its jurisdiction.
5. A municipal corporation having the power to issue licenses, the Supreme Court cannot, by prohibition, correct any errors of law or fact committed by the corporation in determining matters involved in the exercise of such power.
This was a rehearing of the judgment rendered by this court in State, ex relatione Richland County , v Columbia , reported in 16 S. C. 412. It was an application for a writ of prohibition to prohibit the city council of Columbia from issuing any licenses to liquor-dealers until after payment by them of $100 to the county treasurer, according to the terms of the act of December 24, 1880 (17 Stat. 460). The city of Columbia took the position that under the act of 1879 (17 Stat. 69) this act did not go into operation until January 13, 1881, and did not therefore affect licenses granted January 1, 1881.
Mr. J R. Abney, for the relator.
Mr. F. W. McMaster, contra.
The counsel for the relator has been permitted to argue a motion for a rehearing in this case, not because the court entertained any doubt as to the correctness of its original decision, but because that decision turned upon a question of jurisdiction which was not raised and not argued at the former hearing.
The argument on behalf of the relator rests upon the ground that because the act which is sought to be restrained is an act of a judicial nature it must necessarily be regarded as the act of a court , and therefore this court would have original jurisdiction to issue the writ asked for. It does not follow, however, that a judicial act can only be performed by a court. There is no reason why the legislature may not entrust the performance of acts of a judicial nature to persons and bodies corporate who do not constitute one of the courts of the state; and it is the constant habit to do so.
The legislature has at various times conferred upon clerks, sheriffs, and many other officers the power to perform judicial acts, in the sense that they involve the exercise of judgment and discretion; and we do not understand that it was ever supposed that such officers were thereby constituted courts. Indeed, in one sense every ordinance passed by a municipal corporation and every act of the general assembly is a judicial act in that it involves the exercise of judgment and discretion, and it would lead to very extraordinary and anomalous results to hold that whenever a person or corporation is invested with power to perform a judicial act, in the sense above indicated, that such person or corporation is thereby constituted one of the courts of this state.
There is necessarily involved in the idea of a court that of a tribunal empowered to hear and determine issues between parties, upon pleadings, either oral or...
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