State v. Jones

• Decision Date: 01 August 1891
• Citation: 2 Wash. 662,27 P. 452
• Court: Washington Supreme Court
• Parties: STATE EX REL. REED ET AL. v. JONES ET AL.

27 P. 452

2 Wash. 662

STATE EX REL. REED ET AL. v. JONES ET AL.

Supreme Court of Washington

August 1, 1891

Petition by state of Washington ex rel. T. M. Reed, A. A. Lindsley George A. Black, S. B. Conover, Andrew H. Smith, J. H Bellinger, Eugene Fellows, and _____ Hoppe against W. L Jones, and Fremont Campbell, judge of the superior court of Pierce county, for writ of prohibition. Petition denied.

Turner & Graves, for petitioners.

Crowley & Sullivan, for respondents.

ANDERS C.J.

This is an application for a writ of prohibition commanding the judge of the superior court of Pierce county, and the respondent Jones, to refrain from further proceeding in a certain action pending in said court wherein the said W. L. Jones is plaintiff, and the relators are defendants, which action was brought to restrain the relators George A. Black, S. B. Conover, and Andrew H. Smith, as commissioners appointed by the acting governor of the state to locate a site for an agricultural college, from further proceeding in the matter of said location; and the relators S. B. Conover, Andrew H. Smith, _____ Hoppe, J. H. Bellinger, and Eugene Fellows, as the board of regents of said college appointed by the said acting governor from doing any act whatever as such board of regents; the relator T. M. Reed, as state auditor, from issuing any warrant or warrants for the payment of the appropriation made by the legislature for the establishment and maintenance of an agricultural college and school of science; the relator A. A. Lindsley, as state treasurer, from paying such warrant or warrants; and to have the said Black, Conover, and Smith decreed usurpers and intruders as commissioners under the act of the legislature of March 9, 1891, entitled "An act to provide for the location and maintenance of the agricultural college, experiment station, and school of science of the state of Washington, and declaring an emergency;" and their location of said college at Pullman declared null and void, and their commissions canceled. It is alleged in the petition of relators that the defendant Fremont Campbell, as judge of said superior court, on the 20th day of May, 1891, issued a temporary restraining order as prayed for; and further ordered petitioners to show cause before him on May 29, 1891, at the court-house, in the city of Tacoma, Pierce county, Wash., why such temporary restraining order should not be continued pendente lite, and, upon the final hearing of the cause, be made perpetual; that thereafter petitioners appeared before said Fremont Campbell, and moved him, as judge of said court, to vacate and set aside said temporary restraining order, and to vacate said ruling to show cause, upon the grounds (1) that the complaint did not state a cause of action as against petitioners or either of them; (2) that there was no equity in said complaint as against petitioners or either of them; (3) that said court had no jurisdiction of said cause, or of the matters and things alleged in said complaint, or any of them, or of the relief sought by said complaint, or of any part thereof, as against petitioners or any of them; and (4) that said court had no jurisdiction of said cause as against petitioners or any of them; that said motion was by said judge overruled, to which ruling petitioners excepted, and said exception was allowed by the court; that thereafter said petitioners demurred to said complaint upon the same grounds stated and set forth in the above motion; and that thereafter said Fremont Campbell overruled said demurrer, and held that he had jurisdiction of said cause, as against each and every of the defendants, and jurisdiction to grant the said restraining order pendente lite, and to hear and determine said cause.

The petition further alleges that the said Fremont Campbell unless prohibited by this court, will continue to restrain petitioners pending the litigation, and will, upon the final hearing of the cause, grant the relief prayed for in the complaint, and make the said injunction perpetual, unless petitioners show to him, as said judge, some matters of fact other and different from those alleged in said complaint, sufficient, in his opinion, to prevent the granting of such relief. It is also alleged and suggested in the petition that the said superior court is wholly without...